WRITER’S COPY FOR TECH RUN THRU
Laura
A
cemetery in the vicinity of Hamden, Connecticut. It’s December 7 1975..This one
was my idea. (Softly.) Death is the ultimate theatre.
Mary
It
all seems like a dream for me. Two funerals in two days. Thanks for driving me
up here. (beat.) So? Do you miss it? (It begins to rain).
Laura
Paris?
(Spot follows them as they walk slowly across the stage.) A little. (Points)
There.
Mary
I
don’t want to get too close. (They stop.) I didn’t know him that well. (Opens
up her umbrella). He had no enemies I know of. His life writings were conducted
completely without malice.
Voice
Friends
and relatives (Beat) we have come here to day celebrate the life of a great
playwright and novelist who knew the dead quite well and spoke with eloquence
about their long vigil over…the living…(Voice fades out)
Laura
I
suppose he knew her too…
Mary
What?
I’m sorry…I was trying to recall the year I wrote…that review
Laura
Miss
Hellman
Mary
Oh,
Miss Hellman. (chuckles). Yes, thy were close.
Laura
She
could be here somewhere…is that why we’re so far back?
Mary
Miss
Hellman winters in Los Angeles. Edmund, rest his troubled soul, once spoke of
an idea her and Thornton had…but it came to nothing….
Voice
It
was his hope to slow down time just long enough so we might grasp what was passing…what
would not return…
Mary
Funny…looking
down from his hillside in the cold and rain…so much of what he did (beat) He
was the last to look back on what we were as a people, not in a
political…(Thinks about her childhood in Seattle).
Laura
I
saw the play in London….”Our Town”. A revival.
Mary
When
I attended the opening on Broadway, I went with critical intent (Smiling)
hoping to hate it…a stage manager as the lead and all that blank space on
stage…I tried to hold it back…my emotions welling up with…a tough Trotskyite…who
fought against all things sentimental and yet…the tears came anyway…in spite of
myself…that’s real drama…when you try not to cry. I was ashamed until I looked
around…like today. (They both look down the hill.)
Voice
That
his humour and his gentleness might be remembered by you all…that would be
sufficient for him…
Mary
…all
around me in the theatre I saw them crying…tough old birds from uptown and hard
line Stalinists and old maids and golfers from the suburbs…they took no notice
of me…and finally….
Voice
So,
with a gentle smile we say goodbye…To Thornton Neville Wilder…
Laura
Let’s
walk back unless you want to say…something.
Mary
No,
no, there’ll be enough of that tomorrow…It made me laugh to think a trick like
that…putting the dead upon the stage…could move me so. Seems like such a long
ago.
Lily
(Enters
with umbrella raised and addresses audience from center stage.) Poor Wilder.
Poor sad ghost of what once was. The last gasping WASP on the American stage is
now dust. The parade’s gone by for them. It’s time to sweep up the elephant
shit and move on. (Wipes rain from her glasses.) Curtain down. (Bumps into Mary
as three rush together). (Squinting). You! Out on the edge as the observer.
Afraid to show your face?
Mary
(To
Lily.) We musn’t go back.
Lily
Why,
you’re trembling so? (Takes her arm.) Do you fear me face to face with all my
armor on?
Mary
You
of the masculine theatre? (crosses to platform) What the Western mind fears
most is silence. (Mary and Laura fold up their umbrellas and walk off as the
lights go down.)
Lily
(Walks
off the stage into the audience.) (Shouting). Sarah Lawrence College, in
Bronxville, New York. The year is 1948. After my talk to a delighted faculty
and student body, I went out on sun porch of the president of the college A
man. I forget his name. He wasn’t there. It was the one time in public we stood
face to face, Miss McCarthy and I.
Act Three: Scene Two
Lily
As
light comes up, Laura, an eager student, is seated on a swing chair with Tom.
(Both are in Forties college Lily
attire.
It’s the first day of spring, 1948 on the campus of Sarah Lawrence.)
Laura
Do
you think they’d tell me? Between the two of them….the critic and the playwright…
Tom
I’d
be a little careful of them both…Miss McCarthy writes fiction based on fact,
and I’ve been told that Miss Hellman turns her facts into fiction. It all goes
to motivation.
Laura
It’s
just…that I’ve always wondered why poor John Dos Passos seemed to dry up and
blow away.
Tom
Miss
Hellman would know. She knew all of them. She’s a pal of Hemingway. And Dos
Passos. They were all in the Spanish Civil War together!
Laura
Even
Scott Fitzgerald?
Tom
(Laughs)
No, not him. Not unless it was fought on the French Riviera. (Sits and swings
her gently.)
Laura
Oh,
the Spanish Civil War! It’s all so romantic, like Lord Byron in Greece. I think
that the way Miss Hellman as a woman moves around in a man’s world: wars and
Hollywood and Henry Wallace…why…she’s got to be the greatest lady playwright…in
America.
Lily
(Enters
dressed to impress.) I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Of course, there’s always
Miss Treadwell!
Laura
I’m
embarrassed Miss Hellman…
Lily
Don’t
be
Laura
(Swing
slows down.) Who’s Miss Treadwell?
Tom
Sophie
Treadwell. Long forgotten. Best…to forget her, Miss Hellman. Tom. (Rises and
puts out his hand.)
Lily
(She
shakes it firmly, then sits down). Why thank you, Tom. Always a Tom.
Tom
She’s
Laura.
Lily
(Puts
on a southern accent) Tom and Laura. Just like in the play. Of course, theatre,
when I began was more muscular. I recall a truck driver blocking traffic on
Broadway just to buy eight tickets for my play.
Laura
(Getting
confused.) I’d like to ask you…in the Spanish Civil War, did you….
Tom
(Swings
them hard)
Lily
Such
a tragedy, in spite of what Orwell wrote…There never was a war more black and
white than that one.
Laura
I
know you played a part in Spain, a big part…
Lily
We
did a film. “The Spanish Earth.” Hemingway narrated it! I wrote it!
Tom
Imagine
that. (Speeds up again)
Laura
I
know, I know….(Slows swing down.) but what I wanted to know was…Whatever
happened to John Dos Passos? He just seemed to…
Tom
Get
off the train…
Lily
(Gets
off the swing.) Yes. He did. With me there always rivalries. It’s difficult
with women, you know….Dos had a wife named Katy. Ernest and….Katy grew up
together…Katy died last year…Ernest…
Laura
You
call him Ernest?
Lily
Of
course, he’s my friend. They both are. But in Spain it started over food. With
bombs falling everywhere…well…you know the way it is…living in New York…eating
out all the time…Dos had come to Spain to eat. He was sadly disappointed with
the food.
Tom
I’m
confused….
Laura
Food?
Lily
And
then Dos drove off the road into a tree and killed poor. Katy…but before that
in Madrid…
Mary
(Enters
looking like a student with hair up in a bun.) That’s certainly not what Dos
told me.
Lily
(Squints
at her.) (To Tom.) Would you light me, please?
Mary
(Pushes
a match in her face and lights her cigarette)
Lily
It
was all about food. John is a bit of a snob when it comes to eating. It’s hard
to get lamb chops when you’re under bombardment! You were in Spain, then? (Not
recognizing her.)
Laura
She’s…
Tom
(Grabbing
her arm.) No, no…let’s just let this…go
Lily
(Recognizes
her.) Oooohhh Miss…Well, well. Yes I was in Spain while you were pulling weeds
at Wellfleet. (Snorts a laugh) Miss McCarthy. Scampering around dressed as a
student. How cunning. I don’t see that well. (Puts on glasses).
Mary
I
teach here. At Sarah Lawrence. I was just trying to say…that John Dos Passos told me (Tom and Laura ignore her)…
Lily
Walking
alone at midday near the Hotel Florida in the middle of an air raid…all swept
up in my thoughts…while John could only think about his stomach…(Sits back in
the swing).
Laura
I
see. (Sitting down beside her.) Push us TOM. And you knew Scott Fitzgerald?
Mary
(Moves
toward front stage center.)
Lily
I
knew Scott. Poor man. His books are so horribly dated in 1948.
Tom
(Pushing
harder.) Not to me. Gatsby…
Laura
(She
overrides him.) And Spain for you…
Lily
Spain
was a defining moment for me. You had to have been there under bombardment with
all the irrationality and drama of war. Buildings falling down around you. For
me it was a beginning. For John Dos Passos it proved to be an end. He simply
lost his was as a writer.
Laura
I
see. (Smiles) What you say for a woman is all sooooo….perfectly romantic.
Mary
(In
a single spot.) And incorrect. All made up. It was spring of 1948 at Sarah
Lawrence. We were out on the sun porch of the President of college. His name
was Harold Taylor. He was my boss. It was not about food at all. It was about
murder!
Act Three: Scene Three
Mary
Tom
and Laura are together in a porch swing gently
Tom
I’d
be careful with each of them. First, there’s Miss McCarthy, who uses facts to
bolster her fiction, and there there’s Miss Hellman, who uses fiction to
support her facts. They’re a dangerous pair…and when they collide…
Laura
Pair
of what? Women? Well, I can ask my question. Why did John Dos Passos just dry
up like an old apple?
Tom
Or
crack up like Fitzgerald. I’d take the chance. Miss Hellman knew all of them.
Even Hemingway. They were all in the Spanish Civil War together.
Laura
Even
Fitzgerald?
Tom
Not
Fitzgerald, unless it was fought on the French Riviera.
Laura
The
Spanish Civil War. It all sounds so romantic, like reading Shelley. I just
think that for a woman…the way Miss Hellman moves among men…Wars and Hollywood
and Henry Wallace, PM, all that justice! She’s got to be the finest woman
playwright in the country. Right, Tom?
Lily
I’ll
pretend I didn’t hear that. All a woman needs is a modest talent and a touch of
a Southern drawl. Of course, there’s always Miss Treadwell.
Laura
Who?
Tom
Sophie
Treadwell, not too bad. She should be revived…Right, Miss Hellman? Tom. (Holds
out hand and offers seat.)
Lily
Why
thank you, Tom. (Sits beside her.)
Tom
She’s
Laura.
Laura
All
Lauras look alike. I just wanted to ask you about John Des Passos and the
Spanish Civil War. (She starts to move the swing).
Lily
The
Spanish Civil War is something I’m an expert on. I know more about it than
Orwell. If the civilized world had stepped in in 1937…before Madrid fell…
Tom
I
think Laura wanted to know why John Des Passos….
Lily
Gave
up on Marxism, gave up on Hemingway, gave up on life and are and wrong and right?
It was all about food. Dos Passos, who wrote so much about the poor, was a
gourmet. And then, of course, he killed his wife. Poor Katy. (Swing stops). Mr
Dos Passos. He liked his good red wine and his fine cigars and his…
Mary
(Enters
briskly.) Caviar. Here’s a little history from the KGB.
Lily
(Looks
up and thinks that Mary is a student.) What?
Mary
Did
you get much caviar in Spain, Miss Hellman? You say this is all about food. And
how dare you bring up Katy’s death…
Lily
You
think as a student you feel qualified to…
Mary
I’m
not a student! I teach here, Lillian! I was a neighbour of John and Katy and I
won’t let you spread such calumny. (Dumps Laura and Lily out of the swing).
Lily
(Gets
up and puts on glasses.) Just who do you think you are?
Laura
She’s
Mary McCarthy, of course.
Lily
(Puts
on glasses.) Now I recognize you.
Mary
(Pushes
her down into the swing and sits beside her) You must be blind, Miss Hellman.
Lily
I
don’t see well. (She tries to get up but can’t.)
Mary
You
missed a lot in Spain. Food, you say, was what drove Dos Passos from his place
at the top of the writers totem pole on the American Left?
Lily
Food
was exactly…why he betrayed the Spanish Republic!
Mary
It
was not about food at all! You know the reason. A friend of his was murdered by
the Stalinists in Spain. His name was Robles. Dos was the only journalist who
had the courage to write about it…and he screamed it out while you and
Hemingway…kissed Stalin’s derriere.
Lily
This
is making me dizzy…
Mary
I’ll
make you vomit up the truth!
Laura
Boy,
this is fun! (She joins in)
Lily
Stop
this damn thing. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!
Tom
I
think we should slow this thing down. (Does)
Lily
(Catches
her breath). How would you know? You were not in Spain. (Wobbles to her feet.)
Mary
No,
I was not. But I talked with John and I have his telephone number here. Would
like to call him to verify your lies?
Lily
No.
this is not what I’d planned for tonight. (Exits. She stumbles off flustered.)
Tom
I’d
better run after her to make sure she doesn’t fall down the hill. (exits)
Laura
I
never expected her to run. Do you really know John Dos Passos?
Mary
Only
too well. I hate to say this, but I was visiting my psychiatrist nearby, purely
a social call, when I suddenly became ill and rushed across the street to Dos
Passos’ house…because…well…I was pregnant and hoping Katy would be home…she was
not…
Laura
John
Dos Passos’ house?
Mary
He
lived across the street from my psychiatrist and…he was so shy…so embarrassed…I
had (whispers) a miscarriage…and he…had to clean it up (thinking). When John
Dos Passos spoke out on the murder of his friend in Spain, Jose Robles, the
whole Stalinist pack of dogs came down on him. It made no difference. He saw
the blood on their hands. And he spoke up, while Miss Hellman said nothing!...
*(Blackout)
Act Four: Scene One
Laura
It’s
the summer of 1977. Mary is in here kitchen in Castine. It is a sunny Maine
morning. She is 65, a little rounder than she has been, her face a little
older, almost no make up, seems content as a mother, wife author and woman. She
is not afraid of matronhood..Mary is in her kitchen in Castine. (Stage right is
strangely dark).
Mary
(Bread
making continues through entire scene.) (To Laura offstage.) Her worst mistake
was convincing herself that what she wrote on Eichmann was phenomenological,
based on Husserl, when I fact, it was packed with…Did you find it?
Laura
(Offstage.)
What?
Mary
All
the way over on the right. Bring the rye meal, the corn meal, and the graham
flour. What Hannah wrote was filled with subliminal rage that came from her
love for Heidigger and her anger with wealthy…
Laura
(Enters
dressed in skirt and peasant blouse. She’s now in her mid-forties, hair
severely pulled back.) I have the (Looks at boxes) corn meal and the…rye but…I
couldn’t find the graham…
Mary
Oh
I moved it. Try the next shelf down to the left near the rolled oats..
Laura
(Enters
with apron.) What are you making?
Mary
Boston
Brown Bread from my grandmother’s Fanny Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook.
(Holds it up and laughs).
Laura
No
cherries Jubilee?
Mary
Not
this morning.
Laura
You
do enjoy this, don’t you?
Mary
Yes.
Yes. (Measuring milk.) At your age, Laura, my body had control of my mind and I
went off where my passions led me. But now I am old enough or balanced enough
or wise enough to let my mind control my body…and…
Laura
How
long have you and Jim been married?
Mary
Now
the corn meal. Look at the colour. How long? Same as you if you’d stayed
married to Alexei.
Laura
Oh,
that’s right. We’ve been divorced…four…well (beat)…fifteen years you’ve been
married.
Mary
(Beginning
to pour molasses.) Now the graham flour. Smell it.
Laura
“Cookery
means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe and of Helen and the Queen of Sheba.
It means the knowledge of herbs and fruits and balms and spices and all that is
healing and sweet of the fields and savoury of meats, it means carefulness and
inventiveness and willingness and readiness of appliances. It means the economy
of your grandmother and the science of the modern chemist…
Mary
How
was your flight into Bangor? (Pours her a glass).
Laura
Bumpy
Mary
Tomorrow
I’ll drive you over to Blue Hill for lunch.
Laura
Blue
Hill. That’s a wonderful name. Sounds like it was founded by Fauvists. Vlaminck
or Derain. How…?
Mary
It’s
called that for the blueberries and they’re in season NOW. If you’d flown over
it, it would have been…well, almost Prussian Blue. The colour of my mother’s
sapphire ring. (Looks at finger.) Add the salt.
Laura
Have
you read Miss Hellman’s book of scoundrels?
Tom (Tom and Lily enter)
Let
me see the lioness Miss Hellman.
Lily
(Snarls)
You want a lioness? Make me angry. Want some leg?
Mary
I
have been sampling some of it.
Tom
Now
turn. I want to see some teeth!
Laura
There’s
a bite to it…it’s spiteful…
Lily
You
have to make me hate for that…
Laura
(Holds
out bowl as Mary pours in milk.) It made me laugh I’m afraid…
Tom
Who
are your enemies? Ok, McCarthy….
Mary
…it’s
upside down and inside out…scoundrels
Lily
Which
one? Joe or Mary? I despise them both.
Laura
Joe
McCarthy…did you ever meet…(Mixing.)
Tom
Mary
then…old Joe is so awfully faded…
Lily
Teeth
I can give you for Mary McCarthy. She thinks she’s so fucking smart.
Mary
Certainly
not. He had to shave twice a day. That’s what did him in. in the old days when
politicians wore beards they looked led MANUFACTURED.
Tom
Good.
Good. Play the lioness. Show me your legs. No smiling. All teeth!
Laura
The
novel today has become so limited. So introspective…I suppose that’s why Miss
Hellman’s memoirs sell so well. She’s so outgoing!
Lily
Captoe
has a better prose style than McCarthy. More gossamer and ruffly. (Begins to
heat up headed for a boil.) Truman. Now there is a woman. They both write like
Henry James.
Mary
A
lot has changed since Henry James.
Tom
Tell
me all your enemies. I need to see you rage and laugh like a storm.
Mary
(Begins
to pound dough). Some went to jail. A few committed suicide. You worked with
Mary & Lily
Kazan…
Lily
I
never like and Odets ran out of gas so quickly…But there are the ones I truly
despised…Farrell. Trotsky and Louis Budenz.
Tom
More
teeth. Turn to face me…now wet your lips and blow me a kiss…Tell me what you
really wanted when you wrote that book of scoundrels…
Lily
Revenge.
Vengeance.
Laura
It’s
all so amusing how deep down the whole thing goes. Like petroleum geology.
Mary
Yes,
I suppose…it’s all about revenge. I’ll have to beat the lumps out.
Lily
The
Soviets knew how to crush reactionaries. Beria, Yezhov, and Yagoda.
Mary
(Crushes
a clove of garlic.) Kazan…they crushed him in Hollywood. He never came back.
They just ground him up (smashes spoon against dough.) the enemy of mass
murder.
Laura
He
hardly ever spoke about it then.
Tom
I
can see nothing but hatred in your eyes…….(Flashes away)
Lily
Buhkarin
crushed…by Yezkoh, Yagoda, and Elia Kazan!
Mary
They
crushed Bukharin and stamped out Madelstam.
Laura
…not
to mention all that money she’s made…
Mary
The
New York Times held buried it all… Those scoundrels go unmentioned…
Lily
Durenty
of the New York Times held back all their crimes… Beria was such a charming man…so gallant to
women… We should have given him Kazan.
Mary
No
one listened till Solzhenitsyn.
Tom
So what is
better? Vengeance or revenge? Think of Kazan.
Laura
Kazan was
just a victim.
Mary
It was all
revenge…one lie for another…Kazan was in the middle…
Lily
Revenge is
sweet when you get well paid for it! We
did it to Kazan – his head is still in place, its been cut off…
Laura
In Poland
revenge lurks even in the food (rolls out dough)…
Tom
So revenge
is better (flash, flash, flash) than anything you know… When you finally got
Kazan… and they paid you well?
Mary
The names
they named did not go to the Gulag when the New York Times said nothing.
Lily
Revenge is
stronger than a sustained orgasm…and there’s no let down when it’s over. (Mockingly)
Poor Elia). He’ll never recover
from naming names.
Laura
Frankle’s
handbook on starvation… The Holocaust Diet I’d retitle it! (Flours dough)
Tom
Name the
ones YOU crushed…with your own two hands…
As a founding member of The League of Women Shoppers!
Mary (overlap)
There’s
always a sense of inferiority or superiority, I’m not sure which is worse…but
the kind of advances she gets…(bangs down cake tin.)
Laura (overlap)
In
Poland…everyone runs over us…
Lily (overlap)
(Rage
triumphs) Schulberg we reduced to
stuttering and James T. Farrell…(overlay) we ground to mulch. JMES T. FARRELL WE CRUSHED! He just starved
to death.
Mary
Poor
Farrell they destroyed. While all the
old Stalinists have come back to life.
We let them through the magic door of the Vietnam War… (begins to bang
the dough together.)
Tom
Now. Let’s see confusion. Who can you put in that
plum pudding?
Lily
Oh, the
confused, they go back and forth!
Laura
Between
truth and lies.
Mary
(Pounding
dough into pan.) Once you attach
yourself to a lie…a long line of lies like tine cans strung from a honeymoon
van…
Lily
The League
of Women Shoppers. (Laughs.) What an idea for a Front Organisations! That was when truck drivers lined up ten deep
to see my…plays.
Tom
Give me a
Yezhov one more time. And a Schulberg
and a Kazan.
Lily
YEZHOV! He had a lovely wife… (Smells her
armpits.) I had a lover once…
Mary
This bread
has the smell (Breathes it in.)
Lily
I had a
lover once… who said I smelled like New Jersey!... (beat)
Tom
Again.
Mary
…of love
making… (prepares bread for the mold.)
Lily
…after we
made love he told me I smelled like (sadly.) Bayonne.
Tom
One more
burst of rage.
Lily
Yagoda and
Yezhov and Jesus H. Christ.
Tom
Nice. The fur is wet and hot and all that sweat
running down…
Lily
My
legs…that isn’t sweat…
Laura
The fact
that she got so much money for it…
Lily
Kaganovich
was so tall and strong. He’s still alive
at 95.
Laura
Is that
it?
Mary
All done?
Tom
With
Yezhov we got the lioness. The smile was
Kazan!
Mary
Yes. To the oven.
Lily
Pick me
up. (he does.) I need a shower. Want to join me’?
Tom
(Carries
her off.) I get to choose the soap.
Laura
I wonder
if the New York Times would think to offer reparations for the deaths Duranty
covered up.
Mary
Why
not? They send poor kids to camp.
*(Blackout.)
Laura
It’s a
morning in summer of 1982. Mary and Lily
are alone in their dressing rooms. More
than two years have gone. By since Lillian Hellman filed a $2.25 million dollar
defmation law suit against The Dick Cavett Show and Mary McCarthy. Writers and intellectuals across America are
choosing sides. Who is the liar, who is
telling the truth? Their thoughts seem
to focus on a book that became a film.
Mary & Lily
Why should she not want to name her? Why?
Why did I write it as something that happened
That’s a crack.
To me…
Let’s see; break it down.
When it could have been fiction…
She was her lover?
Based on fact…like Hemmingway…
No, just in the way young girls are and she
said that.
Everyone;s asking who she was…
She owed her money?
One small problem…
No.
They both were rich.
She IS and I never met her…
Maybe she inherited her estate.
I’ve seen the preview…
Like Mrs. Parker
They put me in the fucking movie…
What did she say: “Poor authors borrow; great
authors steal.”
Throwing a typewriter out the window…
Julia was her mother’s name.
Why is writing the truth so hard?
No…Unless…
I want things to be true so badly…
Why yes… of course… That’s it
Isn’t that what plays and novels are all
about?
She was…She IS
Not the truth that’s real…
She and Miss Hellman…
Just the truth you long for.
Never met.
ACT FOUR:
scene two
Laura
The Near You Café in 1982…
There’s a storm outside.
Laura
(Lily
stumbles in.)
Lily
(Lily
stumbles in, takes off her glasses.)
Goddam wop
sonofabitch taxi driver. HE let me out
in a three foot puddle. Up to my asshole
in water. I feel like a drowned
chinchilla.
Tom
Let me
give you a hand here. (He tries to hold
her up.)
Lily
(flinging
her wig off as it hits him in the face.)
So much for trying to look like a lday.
Could you give me a fucking smoke?
Tom
(sets her
down in a chair and looks for a place to hang the wig. Settles on the American flag.)
I’ll just
hang it up here to dry.
Lily
(wiping
her glasses.) I escaped my keeper to get up here and what do I find? A monsoon.
Dreamed about this place for the last three nights, (gets up to look
around.)
Tom
The Near
You Café. In our seventy-fifth year.
Lily
Hhhhmmmm. Small like it. Look at this flag. (Looks at wig over flag). Hammett served this flag when it
mattered. He’s buried at Arlington. (puts the wig back to dry). How about your promise?
Tom
(bewildered
by her antics) What?
Lily
You bet
your sweet ass you are.
Tom
Some New
York writer. What did she do? Call you a communist?
Lily
Worse.
She called me a liar.
Tom
That
doesn’t sound so bad. Like a menu?
Lily
I can’t
read it. I’m half blind and I wet my
pants in the taxi cab.
Tom
(not
knowing what to do) Would you like to
use the ladies room?
Lily
I wear a
diaper. I left it in the cab. (laughs) My goddam driver went off to his
spic slut he hauled up here from Harlem when his wife caught him sucking her
clitoris. How’s that for realism? Language of the stretts. You won’t find that in Henry James. That comes from PS 6 on the west side of Manhattan
where I went to school. In the real
world. Not some Preparatory Cloister
like… I could kiss you. (she does).
Tom
(he pushes
her off and wipes away her bad breath)
So, tell me again, what is this law suit…about?
Lily
Lies. All about lies. (beat) I’m accused of lying
in my work (beat). Now I must line up
all my friends, writers, actors, lawyers, producers and call them in for
depositions… they’re not exactly calling me back or they say they can’t
remember or… All because a bitch from
Vassar who adored the poor over dry martini’s looking down from a penthouse on
Riverside Drive… Pour me another drink.
Tom
(pours out
drink) I see… But what is this really
about… I mean, why did this woman say…
Lily
(drinks) I
suppose it all goes back to Stalin. I liked him then…he made things simple….
Tom
When was
then?
Lily
(fails to
answer) I guess it was the stability he brought. The solidity of things
completely: The Dneiper Power Station, White Sea Canal…heavy industry …No
arguments…The clarity of Party discipline. Just get things done! Stalin did the
people’s business. He saw things clearly in black and white.
Tom
Stalin?
(pours a drink for himself). He was a …(aside) murderer.
Lily
Stalin.
Dams and truck factories and highways and schools and hospitals and sports
stadiums while here in the good old USA we had Depression, Nixon, Vietnam and
now there’s Ronald Reagan. Reagan is reality? Talk about lying. (laughs)
Tom
(he laughs)
It goes to show you. There’s hope for actors over seventy.
Lily
All the
craziness I lived with: Watergate and Leonard Bernsteinleading the New York
Philharmonic in a jock strap. Vietnam made him crazier then Spam. In Stalin’s
time it was for the people you did things. Here it’s me, me, me, and us, us,
us, against you, you, you and them, them, them until lies become truth and
truth becomes lies and whop know what’s what anymore? So I made little things,
like being in Britain. Which is worse, a fairy tale where good wins out, or J.
Edgar Hoover in a dress?
Tom
But…for a
writer Stalin was…(he lights her cigarette) poison.
Lily
When I
finally met him in 1944, I was so excited, I wet my pants…
Tom
A lot of
people felt that way about Stalin. Especially in Poland.
Lily
(stumbles
to her feet). Which way’s the washroom? I’m ready to vomit.
Tom
(points
upstairs)
Lily
(vomiting)
It’s rotten when you can’t get drunk without throwing up.
Mary
(enters
with shock of recognition) Why, hello? (to Tom) Tom, right?
Tom
(confused)
Hello. Can I get you something?
Mary
I just
need to use the phone.
Tom
Over
there. (points)
Lily
(offstage)
My fucking girdle’s caught on the seat.
Tom
Sorry, I
need to help an old lady in distress…
Mary
(on phone)
Hi. Yes, I’m fine. The rain is unremittant. I just stepped out of a deluge
into…
Lily
I’ll pull
the fucking bowl out by the seat…
Tom
Let me
help you Miss Hellman.
Mary
(freezes)
I may be a few more minutes. Something’s come up.
(Horn)
Tom
Would you
get that? I think it’s her driver.
Mary
I will.
(waves off driver) All gone! Time for the loaf giver to go hunting.
Tom
(offstage)
Was that her ride?
Mary
No. Just a
tourist looking for the road to Hyannis.
Lily
(Tom half
carrying her as she coughs and smokes at the same time)
Tom
You have
something caught here, Miss Hellman…
Lily
I’m a
walking melodrama. Get your hand off my ass.
Tom
(drops her
in her chair) There.
Lily
Where’s my
driver? He should be here by now.
Mary
(picks up
her wig) I was just admiring your…hair
Lily
(puts on
her glasses and Mary moves closer)
Tom
You’re…the
other one.
Mary
Yes. I’m
the other one. Mary McCarthy…
Lily
(squints
to see her) You…followed me here New York. (polishes her glasses) I’d just like
to say one thing.
Tom
To me?
Lily
No. I’m
not suing you. (beat) Yes. Miss McCarthy over there. Or is it MS?
Mary
Miss will
do. Miss will do fine. How may I serve you, Miss Hellman?
Lily
I’d like
to pursue a thought. Just let me speak my mind. (catches he breath) When you
say that all my work, my plays, my books, my films and in deed my life and thoughts are lies, and you
did say that…when I’ve never mentioned you in print…or hurt you in any
way…though I DO despise you…
Mary
Yes?
You’re not going to toss a Mickey Spillaine in my face…I hope…
Lily
If you
could simply explain to me how you could say such a thing…Because in the end
it’s your money against my money and your friends against my friends. That’s
what buys justice in this country…money and friends in high places…Even you
know that…we’re both writers…all writers fib…we exaggerate…but lies, lies are
something else…lies are deliberate…designed to hurt people to cover up
crimes…that’s what you accused me of…if you could show me somewhere in my life
where I have lied…I’ll just sit here quietly and listen…
Mary
That’s
easy. There are so many. Let’s begin with the woman we know is not named Julia.
I’ve studied every word about her and I’ve concluded it’s all lies. There may
have been a Julia, but she was not your friend. You never met here. You never
carried money in your hat through Hitler’s Germany…and if she did exist…the
reason you can’t name her is quite obvious…
Lily
Oh really?
Mary
She’s
still alive. Which makes all of these Academy Awards lies too. How embarrassing
for you and for the Academy! The whole memoir is written for the screen.
Lily
More
drinks, Tom, Dick and Harry. I read all that stuff you wrote on the Vietnam
War. I congratulate you on your courage. You got out there. A little late, but
I salute you. But as to Julia’s name, her identity…I simply ask for trust.
Mary
First
trust, then check, said Comrade Stalin. A hat box with fifty thousand dollars
in hundred dollar bills. That’s a very large hat…
Lily
It’s just
what happened.
Mary
And
Sigmund Freud...her teacher. You say surely his other students would have
remembered her.
Lily
They could
all be dead.
Mary
The girl
from Cologne with the lung ailment (mock cough) So much liked Camille. The note
pinned to the hat box right out of Sardou. The alarms of the Morgan Bank as she
spread her families’ wealth among the working classes.
Lily
You’re
twisting everything around.
Laura
Mary…
Mary
Am I? Badly beaten in Frankfurt, she somehow died
in London. The man who signed the death certificate had his house blown to bits
in the Blitz. Conveniently. You brought her body back on the old De Grasse. Now
scrap. And had her cremated. HERE. And kept her ashes. Along with all the gifts
she gave you. A drawing by Toulouse Lautrec. A wedgewood desk. A leather set of
Balzac…
Laura
Mary,
she’s ill.
Lily
Why do you
hate me so?
Mary
You asked
me to name off all your lies. Just give us her name….Her real name. You
can’t….Even your love for Hammett was a lie…Even your love for Hammet was a
lie!
Laura
(breaks
in) Mary, that’s enough. It’s just too much!
Lily
I love
that man. (weakly rises) When he was drunk and smelled of whores and came home
covered in blood. I was the one who bathed him and swathed him and put him to
bed. He’s buried at Arlington because I put him there. Me and my friends and
their pull and to me, LILLIAN HELLMAN, Dashiel Hammett is still and American
hero! (collapses)
Tom
I think
you’ve ended her (helps her to her feet)
(Moves to
return her to her chair)
Mary
I’ll stand
up to that woman if it costs me my house!
Lily
There are
worse things in life than lies.
Laura
I’m going.
It’s time.
(lights
fade)
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