According to The Innocence Project, a non-profit group working to overturn wrongful convictions using DNA evidence, over 20 percent of the reversals they secure are of convictions resulting from false confessions. There are no hard statistics on the overall frequency of false confession; the estimates range wildly from under 35 to almost 600 per year.
Last year, playwright John Elston heard an interview with the author of a book detailing police interview techniques on NPR. The author shared actual recordings of suspects giving in to the pressure, some reduced to tears.
Thus, the idea for "Interrogation Room" was born.
The play, which opened Friday night at TheaterLoft, takes place in the wake of the grisly rape and murder of 10-year-old Ashley Cabin. The inconclusive results of the DNA tests have left the police with nothing solid to go on, and they are left to seek a confession from her 14-year-old brother Michael.
To complicate things, Michael is a black child adopted by a white family. Black detective Conrad Bremen questions white detective Frank Janetty's motives for pressuring the youth.
The race issue flips in the second act, which chronicles the interrogation of Gordon Peck, an affluent white man suspicious for both his knowledge of the crime and his connection to Jannety's past.
While the majority of the play takes place in the interrogation room itself, the brief conversations between the detectives outside the room create a fascinating frame for the rest of the action. The doubts expressed outside the room give way to unreserved attack inside.
One cannot blame the detectives for having commitments aside from work, but the idea that Detective Jannety could influence the judicial process by going home for his daughter's birthday is disturbing.
The current production of "Interrogation Room" is the work of collaboration between the newly formed Road Less Traveled Productions and Ujima Theatre Company, an organization working to present and develop the work of black artists for the past 25 years.
"Interrogation Room" has an impressive psychological depth for a small production. The play does well to leave its many complicated questions unanswered rather than reaching for overly simplistic answers.
"Interrogation Room" runs through Dec. 21 at TheaterLoft. Discounted student tickets are available at the box office or by calling 883-0380.
