The Long Silence

A fugitive bursts in on two women who live in a lonely fisherman's cottage off the Maine coast. One of the women, Mattie, has been a helpless mute since the day she saw her father drown. Now her sister Reba runs the lobster traps. The fugitive says he's escaped from a ship that came from behind the Iron Curtain. He wants shelter. Minutes later another man comes saying he's an FBI man and the fugitive is in fact a dangerous foreign agent. Neither story rings quite true—and both men are desperate. Then Mattie, the mute, recognizes the accomplice of one of the men, and hears them plan to murder Reba. Now Mattie knows. In a powerful scene she struggles to warn Reba. A thrilling play with an extraordinary climax.