Theatre noir: JHU alum's one-act play explores human emotion, creativity

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When the lights come on, one woman sits handcuffed in a chair and another stands forbiddingly behind her, back turned to the audience. A table and two chairs sit between them. Little else decorates the stage—a camera on a tripod, a series of mirrors flank the stage's wings—and a pair of musicians stands at the rear.

The bassist, Alexander Fournier, bows a series of shivering notes while the trumpeter, Nicolas Sarbanes, gently blows a series of creepy textures from his instrument. Soon the musicians establish a mysterious groove, establishing the tone and texture for the one-act play that follows. The mood is a shadowy noir, the two women are enigmatic figures, and before the play's roughly one-hour running time expires, one of them will confess to the murder that brought them together in this interrogation room.