On June 3, 2017, a 25 year old Air Force intelligence specialist named Reality Winner was visited by the FBI at her home in Augusta, Georgia. They had a search warrant. She was suspected of leaking proof of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. Is This a Room is a staged play based on the verbatim transcripts of that recorded encounter.
Emily Davis portrays Reality Winner and that is her uncanny but actual name. The performance is excellent. Since we know she went to prison, there is not a sense of mystery in this show yet Ms. Davis almost makes us believe she knows nothing at the start. From jitters to wet terror, we watch her as the layers unfold. The tension is palpable.
Agent Garrick (Pete Simpson) is the main questioner. He attempts awkward social banter to get the conversation rolling. He is accompanied by Agent Taylor (Will Cobbs) and Unknown Male (Becca Blackwell). Each of these men nicely inhabit the characters as spoken. There is a bumbling governmental goofiness to their physicality which suits the words. Unknown Male, who talks little, blurts out the show’s title in a question, “Is this a room?” The moment is bizarre, means nothing and is never answered.
There is a great deal of tension built as the agents circle and prowl their victim. She is not really a match for them but attempts to be elusive for a time. The set (Parker Lutz) is intentionally minimal so this is about the dance between the hunters and the hunted. The direction by Tina Satter keeps the language and movement swirling.
The official transcript is redacted in many places. The show handles that through sound (Lee Kinney and Sanae Yamada) and lighting (Thomas Dunn). That is effective as a presentation of the mystery which we are not cleared to know about. It is also frustrating as the transcript never allows us to understand the severity of the leak. Reality believes people have a right to know this “history.” Why we are not allowed to know is a question that should be answered in society where the government is advertised as “for the people.”
The play clocks in at slightly more than an hour. Is This a Room is certainly stylish and well acted. Did it make me think about these issues in any new way or shed any new light? Not really.
As we watch major political and governmental figures ignore subpoenas from Congress, it is perhaps important to reconnect with Ms. Winner’s story. She is the first person imprisoned under Trump’s Espionage Act. She leaked classified information; there is no question of that. Are there bigger and more serious crimes out there? The wealthy and politically connected have a lot more chance of eluding the questioners than did this young woman. That is our America. Let’s continue to argue about vaccines and masks while the laws remain unequally applied for all citizens.
Is This a Room is running through November 27, 2021 in repertory with another transcript inspired play, Dana H. on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre.