September 14, 2013 12:00 am •
Surveillance, suspicion and misinformation evoked tension and paranoia during the Invisible Theatre’s opening Wednesday of its 43rd season with John W. Lowell’s 2009 “The Letters.”
A departure from the theater’s often-sentimental fare, “The Letters” is a two-actor, 80-minute quiet thriller of intrigue set in a ministry director’s office in the 1931 Soviet Union.
From the moment the lights go up on the monochromatic, sepia-toned office set — splashed with the bold red Soviet flag with its glinting gold hammer and sickle — a feeling of oppression percolates through the intimate theater. Portraits of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin seem to be watching every move.
.