Chapter One

Act I

Scene 1

A bare stage.

We see two women smoking. They are LILLIAN HELLMAN and MARY MCCARTHY. They're wearing suits and heels.

LILLIAN: Did we ever meet?

MARY: Once or twice.

LILLIAN: I don't really remember.

MARY: Well, then I don't remember, either.

LILLIAN: All right. Where was it?

MARY: At Sarah Lawrence College. Stephen Spender invited us to speak-

LILLIAN: I was invited. You turned up.

MARY: You thought I was a student because I looked quite young.

LILLIAN: I didn't even notice you.

MARY: My point. I walked onto the sunporch, and you were telling all of them a huge lie-

LILLIAN: Naturally-

MARY: -about the Spanish civil war. I couldn't bear it. You were brainwashing them, and they were looking at you like wide-eyed converts. So I interrupted and corrected you. And we had a fight. [To the audience.] And I remember that on her bare arms, she had a great many bracelets, gold and silver-

A long string with a hook on the end falls from the rafters with a bunch of gold and silver bracelets dangling from it. LILLIAN puts them on.

-and they began to tremble in her fury and surprise at being caught red-handed in a lie.

LILLIAN holds out her arm and makes the bracelets jangle against one another, louder and louder.

LILLIAN: Like that?

MARY: Exactly. The incident at Sarah Lawrence was in 1948. I was teaching there at the time-

LILLIAN: I never had to do that. I did teach, but I never had to teach. Although once, after I testified, after I stood up on the bad morning before the House Un-American Activities Committee and said-

LILLIAN an