THE STORY: The Prisoner is a cardinal in the Catholic church of a middle-European country. The Interrogator represents the totalitarian government that has taken over that country and that finds it necessary to destroy the cardinal, whose independence of spirit constitutes a danger to the government. The play is a series of scenes between The Interrogator and The Prisoner, each of whom respects the other but cannot accept what the other stands for. The Interrogator attacks The Prisoner without effect; The Prisoner’s faith and his integrity are so strong that they cannot be touched by ordinary means. At first it is The Interrogator who shows the strain of the interviews, and he becomes desperate in his search for some weapon to break The Prisoner’s spirit. The relationship between the two men is a complex one, almost that of friendship. The Interrogator believes so deeply in what his government is doing that he feels he is actually trying to bring The Prisoner to the truth, like a priest trying to save a soul. The Prisoner’s knowledge of the real truth remains intact until The Interrogator discovers his antagonist’s one vulnerable spot: his deep sense of personal guilt. Playing on that, The Interrogator is able to undermine The Prisoner’s belief in his vocation—in his right to be a priest—and eventually so twists and confuses him that the confession is signed and The Prisoner is destroyed. But in destroying The Prisoner’s faith, The Interrogator destroys his own in his government and in his actions. He realizes that what he has ruined was something more noble than his own cause.
