This short, sharp exploration of capital punishment is by the fearlessly poetic Debbie Tucker Green who has a Pinteresque ear for the staccato rhythms of uncompleted sentences - or ordinary conversation.
The setting here is the sterile consultation room of an institution that exists to kill those condemned to death by law. The author, who also directs, imagines a process that allows victims of capital crime to take control of a sentence.
The two over-trained functionaries are neutral in every possible way. The unnamed woman (a coiled and dignified Marianne Jean-Baptiste) with whom they must deal subverts their well-drilled attempts at civility. The reason for the encounter only becomes clear towards the end of the play's 70 minutes.
Language is key. The loaded significance of every sentence is highlighted by one uniquely innocuous exchange, when the woman asks for the date while filling out a form.
It's tense and powerful stuff, as far as it goes. But the absence of a point more focused than, say, the clumsy attempts by an Orwellian system to be humane, is frustratingly elusive.
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