In June 2017, a U.S. Air Force veteran with the surreal but actual name of Reality Winner was renting a sparsely furnished house in Augusta, Georgia, that she shared with her dog and cat. Then age 25, she had earned an Air Force Commendation Medal for her service from 2010 to 2016 as a language analyst in Farsi, Dari and Pashto. Desiring further service, she had applied for Special Forces deployment and meanwhile was translating for a National Security Agency military contractor. Her plan fell apart when, on June 3, FBI agents arrived at her home and conducted a 70-minute interrogation, during which she admitted to leaking an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

In 2018, Winner was given the longest prison sentence ever imposed for unauthorized release of U.S. government classified information to the media — five years and three months in federal prison. After serving three years, Winner was released in June 2021 due to good behavior. Now age 34, she is a fitness and language instructor in South Texas with a Wikipedia site and a newly published memoir.

After reading about Winner’s conviction, playwright Tina Satter came across the verbatim transcript of the FBI interrogation and saw its potential dramatic paydirt. Satter conceived and directed a play “Is This a Room” in which four actors dramatize the transcript, including pauses, coughs and stutters. Following its sold-out January 2019 debut at the Kitchen in Chelsea, New York City, the production moved off-Broadway later that year and in 2021 gained an acclaimed Broadway run. Satter’s 2023 film adaptation of the play, “Reality,” now streams on Max.

Through January 11, “Is This a Room” is now on another Chelsea stage — this time in a 45-seat black box at Chelsea Theatre Works in Chelsea, Mass., in a riveting production by the Apollinaire Theatre Company.

A display in the theater’s reception area includes a map of the Mideast, a dog bed, yoga texts and the most poignant element — a framed photograph of Reality in uniform.

The 75-minute, intermission-free production is directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques, who also designed its expressive lighting. Other than two unnecessary props — a mannequin of a furry black-and-white dog and a large wire cage, Joseph Lark-Riley’s bare-bones scenic design lets the actors’ performance of the FBI transcript speak for itself. The small, black, two-level space is surrounded on two sides by seats for the audience, which is fewer than 10 feet from the actors. Capitalizing on this immediacy, the production engages the audience in an exhilarating experience as eyewitnesses as the FBI agents feign friendliness and Reality plays along.

A convincingly cool and later vulnerable Reality, Parker Jennings is attired as her character was on that warm June day in Georgia — in cutoff denim shorts, a button-down shirt and yellow high-tops, her hair pulled into a bun. Her two inquisitors, Special Agent Justin C. Garrick (Brooks Reeves) and Special Agent R. Wallace Taylor (Cristhian Mancinas-García) wear relaxed attire — khakis and short sleeved shirts, but their belts hold guns. Outfitted in a military vest, tall, tattoo-emblazoned Bradley Belanger is the Unknown Male, whose one spoken line gives the play its title. He spends most of his time with his back to the audience, miming a search of Reality’s few furnishings.

With deft use of facial expressions, voices and constantly moving bodies, Jennings, Reeves and Mancinas-Garcia bring to life the taut drama simmering under humorous exchanges and genial quips in the transcript. Garrick and Taylor encircle Reality or move behind her as they conduct their well-rehearsed inquiry designed to raise her sense of uncertainty and powerlessness.

With his nimble face and voice, Reeves renders a particularly menacing Garrick.

His affable, low-key manner is creepy even before he heightens his game by informing the increasingly uneasy Reality that they have solid evidence of her leak. Asking after her dog as he arranges for its transfer, Garrick comments on his pets and says, “If you can tell, we’re all dog people.”

When standing behind Reality, Mancinas-Garcia’s Taylor tends to glower; but his face-to-face interactions have a bit of humor and warmth. Asked about weapons, Reality tells him she has an AR-15. He says, “Is it pink?” She anwers “It’s pink,” and informs him of the Glock 9 mm under her bed. “You sound like my house,” Taylor replies. “Okay. We’re good then.”

Reeves has the unnerving skill to subtly express Garrick’s fake empathy, and as he tries to coax Reality to confess, he invites her to tell them why, saying, “Because you don’t seem the type to do this. I–I believe it. I want to believe it.”

Taylor adds, “Maybe you made a mistake.”

Although her body is tense, Jennings shows Reality maintaining outward calm as she resists their tactics. But tensions mount and when Garrick pauses to slowly utter “Reality,” Reeves turns the sound of her name into a signal that their game is over.

When convinced of their evidence, Reality gives in and drops to the floor. Yet she still holds her own, admitting that she leaked the report on Russian election interference without apology. She says, “Why isn’t this getting — why isn’t this getting out there? Why can’t this be public?”

But facing all she has lost, Jennings shows Reality’s vulnerability as she fears for herself and her beloved pets. She says, “If I ask you, like, what’s going to happen to me, you’re going to say that you don’t know at this point, so that’s kind of my only concern. …And my ability to keep these two animals alive.”

This potent hour of theater concludes as Garrick clicks off the recorder; but its story of a personal tragedy lingers as a parable of a fragile democracy.

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