For Tina Satter’s This is a Room at off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theater, the entire text is composed of a transcript of FBI agents questioning a former Air Force linguist named Reality Winner in 2017. She was interrogated in her own home and then charged with leaking classified government information on Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election. In 70 tense minutes, Satter and a quartet of actors transform Parker Lutz’s bare set into a chamber of intimidation and fear. Lee Kinney and Sanae Yamada’s metallic sound design recreating the aural landscape of a tape recording adds to the eerie, other-worldly atmosphere.
Reality’s defenses crumble as the agents casually chat about her pets, the groceries she’s carrying (she is just returning from the supermarket), and her workout routines. Her personal space grows smaller and smaller as her questioners take over her home, move closer into her domain and eventually corner her in a tiny space for her cat and dog (hence the title). The subject of the documents is not even directly mentioned, and whenever it comes up, the lights black out and sound designers Kinney and Yamada provide an ominous boom representing a redaction.
Context would help somewhat (there are explanations in the program), but Satter is after creating a mood of tension and fear and exploring how authority figures by their very presence can easily instill panic.
At first it seemed to me the name Reality Winner was an ironic code name to protect the woman’s identity, but it is in fact her real monicker and, as of this writing, she is still serving a prison sentence. Emily Davis subtly conveys Reality’s reality, her shrinking self-esteem and confidence, and the importance of the subtextual details of her life as they are taken from her. Pete Simpson, TL Thompson, and Becca Blackwell underplay the authority and power of the agents but still impart a sense of intimidation and menace.
Is this a Room is more about tone and feelings than story. It may be brief and lacking in plot, but definitely leaves you shaken and rattled.
