In the interest of candor I will take a chance and say something of a personal nature about the genesis of this play. Once, a long time ago, I knew a woman who was a spy, and she broke my heart, and I initially took up the subject of Mata Hari as a vehicle with which to transport the pain — into some haven of some sort — of clarity perhaps — or whatever — anyway what happened was that this vehicle in short order became an object of interest in itself — and then traveled far afield — and a long distance from the heartbreak that originally got me to hop aboard.
