Brilliant Traces
by Cindy Lou Johnson

For a one woman/one man cast.

The setting is a remote cabin in the wilds of Alaska, and while a blizzard rages outside Henry lies sleeping under a heap of blankets.

Suddenly he is awakened by the insistent knocking of an unexpected visitor — who turns out to be Rosannah, a distraught young woman who has fled all the way from Arizona to escape her impending marriage, and who bursts into the cabin still fully dressed for her wedding.

Exhausted, she throws herself on Henry’s mercy, but after sleeping for two solid days her vigour — and combativeness — return.

Both characters, it develops, have been wounded and embittered by life, and both are refugees from so-called civilisation.

Thrown together in the confines of the snowbound cabin they alternately repel and attract each other as, in theatrically vivid exchanges, they explore the pain of the past and, in time, consider the possibilities of the present.

In the end their very isolation proves to be the catalyst which allows them to break through the web of old griefs and bitter feelings which beset them both, and to reach out for the solace and sanctuary which only hard-won understanding, self-awareness and compassion for the plight of others can bestow.