A verandah on a tropical evening. Harry is a genius filmmaker on location in what appears to be Borneo, having a terrible time editing his latest film, in which his stunning red haired wife, Rita, stars. He edits over and over again, but can't quite get it to make sense. She wants him to take out the nude scenes, and says he bullied her into doing them, but he insists that she enjoyed it. They may or may not be joking about trying to murder each other. She may or may not have slept with the alcoholic actor in the film, who may or may not be a spy, who plays an alcoholic writer who also may or may not be a spy. Layer upon layer of mystery, with echoes of Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Joseph Conrad, Robbe-Grillet, and old black and white movies about passion in exotic places. What is true or not may depend on the film and blood on the cutting room floor.
Published in Murder In The Red Barn & Other Plays.