The Mentalist's Jeffrey Hatcher, who wrote the book for the Broadway musical Never Gonna Dance, will be represented at the Door Kinetic Arts Festival with a reading of his new play Strongman's Ghost.

Directed by Oscar-winning playwright Eric Simonson, the play concerns a strongman military dictator—under threat of a coup, an invasion, and a publishing deadline—who chooses to kidnap a writer.

Rooming House opens with lights and sound coming up slowly, allowing audiences’ eyes and ears to adjust to the familiarity of the relationships and the immediacy of the conversation, which easily slips between English and Spanish. After a few personal anecdotes about everyday people who do life-endangering acts, the example of Orpheus looking back at Eurydice is raised and variously interpreted. The ensuing game of whodunit (inspired by the board game Clue) turns the myth into a live-action game in which the ensemble considers individual culpability and psychological states within the stages—or “rooms”— of decision-making. 

"...it doesn't feel to me that the sculpture inspires kineticism as much as kineticism inspires the sculpture.

The General is the dictator, the strongman of the title. He is blunt, swaggering, insecure, brutal, but not without some limited charms and just enough sensitivity to allow one to feel at least momentarily sympathetic to him.