3 Blind Mice
by Eileen Connolly
a psychological spy thriller
I am in love with the mighty Broadway mystery thrillers of the 1970’s, like Sleuth and Deathtrap, and Hollywood gems like The Parallax View. I enjoy being boggled by their complex plots with twisty turns and gasp-worthy moments, and the protagonist’s journey of discovery. While having fun with all the trappings of the genre, I hope to invite audiences to keep one eye open and alert to our current relationship with violence as entertainment, and our personal responsibility to all of our fellow humans.
This script has never been produced.
Interested producers can contact me below for a script.
1963.
Mac, an MI-6 agent, has been found dead. Either she leapt from her hotel window on her own, or someone gave her some help.
Her former wartime associates— a now highly placed CIA agent, Kip, and his former Irish intelligence asset, Cate —meet in her faculty office at Yale University to pay their respects, or possibly to cover their tracks.
Raising a glass of whiskey to their fallen friend, the two former spies engage in a deadly game of chess, but even years of looking over their shoulder and dodging bullets hasn’t prepared them for this deadly game.
Things only escalate when Kip’s abandoned ex-lover/secretary strolls in.
Smart odds are on someone not making it out alive.
characters:
KIP: Born in the American Midwest, his father moved the family to Italy for business reasons. He attended boarding schools in England, and thereafter sported a British accent. During WWII, he ran the U.S.’s wartime intelligence division in Italy (the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS). Currently he is highly placed at the CIA.
CATE: Irish, daughter of an earl, member of the peerage of Ireland. Because of her travels in Europe’s artistic and high society circles, she was recruited by Kip to work directly for him during WWII. She had a lark working in counterintelligence which mostly involved going to parties and drinking German confiscated champagne.
ALICE: an American volunteer during WWII, she was assigned as a secretary to Kip’s newly formed U.S. Office of Strategic Services in Rome, Italy. Years later, she now assists Mac at Yale University. For her, the intervening years have been harder than the war.
time & place:
TIME: 20 years after WWII. One month after JFK’s assassination. December 1963.
PLACE: a faculty office at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
“She’ll be dancing with the devil, poor lass, and thinking he’s a saint!”
PRODUCTION ASPECTS: simple unit set; 3 actors (1 male/2 female) on stage + 1 actor (nonbinary) via voiceover; preference and historical preference for person of color casting; potential for use of multimedia.
1942.
SCENE 1. Flashback to Rome, Italy. Office of Strategic Services, late at night, over whiskey.
KIP
I’m always in the market for a well-placed connection.
CATE
A spy! How divine.
KIP
A connection.
CATE
You say poTAYto, I say poTAHto. Funnily enough I’m wearing my spy couture now. Do you like?
KIP
This isn’t a game, Cate.
CATE
Oh? I thought it was, in fact, The Great Game.
KIP
If you say yes to this, you need to seriously think about what you’re getting yourself into. There could likely be consequences.
CATE
Such as? Go on. Horrify me properly with all the serious potentialities that may yet befall me. Let’s see if you can scare me away, you big bad wolf.
KIP
You could be caught.
CATE
Golly. What happens then?
KIP
There’s a range of possibilities.
CATE
I’m all a quiver.
KIP
The Germans have a new form of interrogation. Naked. Wet. Hot curling irons, electrocution, kerosene down your throat. Is that serious enough for you?
CATE
The beastly brutes.
KIP
There’s also the Water Treatment.
CATE
Sounds almost spa-like.
KIP
I’m told it feels a bit more like drowning.
CATE
Huh. You know, Kip, your pitch needs work. Not really selling this whole spy career.
KIP
Not a spy. A connection.
CATE
PoTAYto, poTAHto. Besides taking this seriously, what do you need me to do?
KIP
Gather information.
CATE
Ah! With secret tricks of the trade? Mini camera or recorder in my brassiere, perhaps?
KIP
You’ll go to parties, events, dinners, be seen at the theater, talk to certain people of interest to me.
CATE
Basically, live my life.
KIP
From time to time, I’ll ask you to drop information into the ears of certain Italian partisans, for example. Or communists, fascists, Nazis, that sort of thing.
CATE
I can do that. Spread information. Telephone, telegraph, tell a woman. Yes? Sounds easy.
KIP
I wouldn’t say easy.
CATE
Trust me. I’ll be invisible.
KIP
How’s that?
CATE
I’m a woman.
Three Blind Mice is a completed full-length play. It has never been staged. Interested producers can contact me here for a full script, synopsis, and style description. Many thanks.
I n s p i r a t i o n “September 1, 1939”
W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return
