Why does our culture overflow with establishments which purport to give comfort in exchange for the act of displaying our frailties before others? From the couches and confessionals to AA/ACOA. therapy in this country almost exclusively rests upon the act of revealing our deepest selves to relative strangers.

What is it about the stranger, the unrelated, which prompts us to discuss topics and actions which we would never bring up with those who know and love us? Why is it inherent in us to build sand castles to hide our secret selves from our friends, yet reveal our secrets openly with those who have no real investment in our personal well-being?

Strangers are a free zone. We can say, do or act any way we want because they have no idea who we are, and we have no idea about their prejudices. Professional therapists build relationships with us, but they are false relationships, based on their potential to earn a living, and therefore do not rest on a true connection between our souls. Yet if they are who we will speak with, what does that say about the honesty of our interpersonal connections? PErhaps, in our admissions to them, we are testing out potential parts of ourselves against an unbiased mirror? Perhaps we are experimenting with our own self-imposed limits, or image. Or we could simply be acting out out personal fantasies before the clean slate of the eyes of a stranger.

But just as they do not know us, we do not know them, who they are, what they want, or what they have done. In strangeness we are all equals, and can therefore speak our minds. Honesty is the privilege of equality, and its price. And if, in our honesty, we admit to building our self-respect around an act of true freedom, one that exists beyond the realm of moral or ethical conduct, who is to judge us but strangers, who have no personal investment in us, and can therefore be the only truly impartial witnesses to our souls?

The Hellfire Cafe was first performed Off-Broadway, at Masquer's Cafe in Times Square in 1992. It was revamped in 1999 in Los Angeles, and had a short run in Pasadena. It is with great pleasure that I publish it now, and make it available for actors and audiences to experience the disorientation of this experiential one-act drama. The words written above appeared in the liner notes of the first production, and I am happy to note they still hold true today. For now, more than ever, with the development of social networks and on-line personas, we find ourselves reinventing our image through reposting the thoughts of others, and "sharing" and "liking" images and words that speak to some parts of us. But aren't we more than our Facebook profiles, or the conglomeration of countless tweets and pins? Or have we simply embraced the notion that we can only identify ourselves through the words and eyes of strangers, and will therefore rate our popularity by how many followers we have, or "friends"? Such questions may never be answered. But wouldn't it be interesting to discover the inner workings, hidden lives, and hoarded hatreds of the flesh and blood that surrounds us?

What would happen, I wonder, if in a restaurant, or on the bus, subway car, or commuter trains, our fellows bared their souls? I am unsure of the end result. But I believe, deeply, that such revelations would, indeed be terrifying.