About the Play:

Two Rooms has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Female Scenes, and Female/Male Scenes.

Two Rooms is a full-length drama by Lee Blessing. Provocative and compelling, this arresting work deals with a subject much in the minds of contemporary society – the taking of innocent hostages by political terrorists. Two Rooms illuminates both the numbing agony of the one detained and also the helpless fury of those who are left behind – loved ones impatient for something to be done, and officials who feel they must be guided by logic rather than emotion.

Two Rooms soberly explores the world of US foreign policy by examining a fictitious kidnapping by Hezbollah in Beirut, and the calculations made to get the victim home safely. The two rooms of the title are a windowless cubicle in Beirut where Michael, an American professor, is being held hostage by Arab terrorists and a room in his home in the United States, which his wife, Lainie, has stripped of furniture so that, at least symbolically, she can share his ordeal. In fact the same room serves for both and is also the locale for imaginary conversations between the hostage and his wife, plus the setting for the real talks she has with a reporter and a State Department official. The former, an overly ambitious sort who hopes to develop the situation into a major personal accomplishment, tries to prod the wife into taking umbrage at what he labels government ineptitude and inaction, while the State Department representative is coolly efficient, and even dispassionate, in her attempt to treat the matter with professional detachment. It is her job to try to make the wife aware of the larger equation of which the taking of a hostage is only one element, but as the months inch by it becomes increasingly difficult to remain patient. The wife is finally goaded by unforeseen developments to speak out against government policy and, in so doing, triggers the tragic series of events that brings the play to its startling conclusion. Two Rooms is a classic, relevant play about best intentions and the trouble with fighting an enemy with an entirely different philosophy. In the end there are no winners, only losers, and the sense of futility and despair that comes when people of goodwill realize that logic, compassion and fairness have become meaningless when dealing with those who would commit such barbarous acts so willingly. 

Two Rooms premiered in 1988 at the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"…the playwright's eye is penetrating…[Mr. Blessing] reaffirms his authority with timely political questions." — New York Times

"…a compact and powerful exploration of the hostage-taking of Beirut." — Drama-Logue

"…it reminds you that theater, when it's good, can make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck." — Washington Post

About the Playwright:

Lee Blessing is an American playwright who remained in his hometown of Minneapolis working in regional theater before relocating to New York when he was in his forties. The author of over twenty plays and screenplays, he been nominated for Tony and Olivier Awards as well as the Pulitzer Prize. He is professor emeritus at Rutgers University, where for a dozen years he headed the Graduate Playwriting Program of Mason Gross School of the Arts.