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didn’t want to be on your side, quibbling—it seemed like quibbling—I wanted—
    MARY : —to be one of the boys.
    LILLIAN : We all wanted to be one of the boys.
    MARY : I never wanted to be one of the boys—
    LILLIAN : But you wanted to be the only woman at the table, which is practically the same thing. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to be on the side of change and equality—
    MARY :
We
were for change and equality—
    LILLIAN : But it didn’t feel that way. It felt as if you were just a bunch of critics. Being against things was easy. I wanted to be
for
something. That was the hard part.
    MARY : So you overlooked “the bad stuff.” The technicalities. The purges, the murders, the Nazi-Soviet Pact—how could you have remained sympathetic after the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
    LILLIAN : Miss Hellman does not wish to discuss the Nazi-Soviet Pact—
    MARY : I know. And you never did. You just said, “We were wrong,” as if that was that, as if that took care of the fact that you looked the other way when it was all staring you in the face—
    LILLIAN : You’re just angry because we became heroes—
    MARY : What?
    LILLIAN : Think about it. It’s true. The war ended, the Russians were no longer our allies, I was blacklisted, thousands of people were blacklisted. And all of you—all of you who were so “right” about things didn’t lift a finger to help. And then the House Un-American Activities Committee came along and gave us all a chance to do something brave.
[Beat.]
And I went there on that bad morning—
    MARY : In your Balmain dress—
    LILLIAN : Yes. In my Balmain dress and a brand-new hat and a beautiful pair of white kid gloves. I was fabulous.
    MARY : And lest anyone forget, she wrote an entire book about it. You’d have thought the woman had gone to jail. Years later there was a play on Broadway—the testimony of the people who’d appeared before the committee, all of it in the public record, and of course her statement was read, it wasthe high point of the play, and she actually asked to be paid for it.
    LILLIAN : I did. And guess what? They paid me!
    She laughs
. MARY
laughs, too. A knock at the door
. LILLIAN
stands and goes over to a door. She opens it. A
SUMMONS SERVER
is there
.
    SUMMONS SERVER : Are you Lillian Hellman?
    LILLIAN : Yes?
    He hands her a subpoena
. LILLIAN
opens the envelope. Then she puts on her hat and her white kid gloves
.
    ENSEMBLE :
    GIVE US NAMES
DO YOU SWEAR
ARE YOU NOW
DID YOU EVER
THE COMMITTEE IS IN ORDER
GIVE US NAMES
ARE YOU NOW
HAVE YOU EVER EVER BEEN
STATE YOUR NAME
SO HELP YOU GOD
    ANNOUNCER : Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
    LILLIAN :
[From her letter to the committee.]
“I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completelyinnocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive.… To hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.… I would, therefore, like to come before you and speak of myself. I am prepared to tell you anything you wish to know about my views or actions if your Committee will agree to refrain from asking me to name other people. If the Committee is unwilling to give me this assurance, I will be forced to plead the privilege of the Fifth Amendment at this hearing.”
    MARY
yanks at the red parachute drop, and it vanishes
.
Scene 5

    What happened at Sarah Lawrence
.
    MARY
emerges from the wings, pulling a rope that brings a porch onto the stage
.
    LILLIAN : What’s this?
    MARY : Sarah Lawrence College. You skipped right over it.
    LILLIAN : It wasn’t that important.
    MARY : It’s where we met.
    LILLIAN :
[Referring to her letter to the