W.M.D
is a one-act play that explores a number of issues concerning privacy and national security, as well as large questions with respect to the causes of international conflict and the potential consequences of ignoring the sources of discontent that confront modern world civilization.
Set within a pair of New York hotel rooms, the play deals with a surveillance team of two men, an attractive female “agent,” and an international weapons insepector who has been selected for security verification. During the course of the events presented, the far from simply “black and white” issues of “track and trace” investigation are dramatically addressed from the widely differing points of view of the two technicians, a middle aged nationalized citizen of Eastern European origin and a somewhat younger African-American.
With the arrival of the subjects for observation, the action shifts to voyeuristic engagement, as the audience is placed in a parallel position with that of the two surveillance agents, observing the intimate inter-actions of a man and woman in a seemingly private hotel room. A contrapuntal juxtaposition of sexuality and the technical means of mass destruction, although clearly titillating for the unseen surveillance team, ultimately leads to a failure in consummation. This dysfunction is followed by some apparently deeply personal disclosures of the female and a somewhat more extended discourse by the man under observation. When he eventually falls asleep, more of the nature of “the trap” is revealed, the woman leaves, and the two men who have recorded the entire exchange wait to be relieved of their duty.
W.M.D. was published in Queens University of Charlotte Literary Magazine.