Angela, a hard-bitten call-girl, is visited by Tom, a private detective of long acquaintance, who is convinced that she can supply information about a murder case which, some years earlier, resulted in a miscarriage of justice. As Tom plays on their former closeness, trying to draw out the facts he seeks, Angela withdraws behind a schizophrenic screen of multiple personalities ranging from a brazen creature named Leontyne, to a shrinking violet called Emily, to a haughty English-woman named Renata. Doggedly persistent, Tom does, in the end, break through the fears which have driven Angela to hide the truth within herself. With chilling intensity she pours through a tale of duplicity and corruption and recounts how an innocent man ended up paying for the crimes of others. As the play ends Tom offers to drive Angela to her next assignation—relieved that his quest has ended but, at the same time, disturbed by the knowledge that his worst fears have been borne out.
Presented as a double bill with this author's Elegy for a Lady by New Haven's noted Long Wharf Theatre (under the title 2 by A.M.), the present play balances the poetic evocativeness of its companion piece with a hard-hitting, naturalistic study of a detective and the prostitute from whom he seeks to extract the facts of a long-unsettled case.