Synopsis
It is August, 1951. In the sweaty back room of a U.S. Army safe house, hidden deep in the Florida Keys, a young American Counter-Intelligence agent named David has brought in a special subject for an interview – a German medical doctor named Halb. The doctor was rumored to have found a vaccine for Polio, years before his American counterparts, and David wants to acquire that vaccine to save the lives of countless children. However, as the Faustian bargain unfolds, we learn this knowledge was gained by the doctor’s work in Nazi concentration camps with experiments on human prisoners. Over the course of one night, David must find this formula hidden inside Halb’s head, or risk an American disaster.
Based on early CIA interrogation techniques, PARADISE KEY follows the step-by-step process of “breaking the mind” in order to retrieve information. The play explores the border between the physical world (the body, a baseball bat) and the metaphysical (the mind, the will, ideas.) Using specific psychological techniques, David tries to uncover the truth about the formula, but Halb will only offer it to him if he can in return make David a man, complicit and responsible for the consequences. In this way, the two are locked in a battle for definition – of each other, of history, of themselves – using words like knives, and we watch as they dissect the body to find the root of the disease inherited by each generation, passed from father to son.
Cast: 2 (2m)
Running Time: Approx. 100 min (one intermission)
Development and Production History
PARADISE KEY was developed during my first year as part of the MFA program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It received workshop time and readings.
Winner of the 2010 Trustus Theatre Playwrights Festival.
Sample
Click the link below for a 10-page dialogue sample. 
PARADISE KEY Sample (PDF 3kb)
More Information
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