The Anarchist

David Mamet

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781559364287
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Arte dramático americano

• Mamet's most recent work set to premiere in London's West End this Fall
  
• Awaiting word on the casting of the two leading female roles
  
• to be directed by Rupert Goold, associate artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company
  
• Spring Broadway transfer in the works
  

Ann, seated at a desk. A telephone is on the desk. An intercom sits on a conference table. Also on the desk are several files, a loosely bound manuscript and several books. A briefcase sits on the floor. Cathy is standing.

ANN: Will you sit down? How are you?

CATHY: No, I think I’m well. Thank you for asking.

ANN: What have you been doing?

CATHY: I’ve been studying. As usual.

ANN: And what have you learned?

CATHY: In the larger sense . . .

ANN: . . . all right.

CATHY: I hope that I’ve learned to be reasonable. At least I have studied it. Most importantly.

ANN: Most importantly.

CATHY: Yes.

ANN: Reason more than patience?

CATHY: One might think the pressing study would be patience. But patience, of course, implies an end.

ANN: “Patience implies an end.”

CATHY: Well, yes.

ANN: As?

CATHY: One may be patient only for something.

ANN: Such as?

CATHY: A deferred desire, or the cessation of discomfort . . .

ANN: Revenge?

CATHY: Well, that would fall within the rubric of desire deferred.

ANN: And Reason teaches?

CATHY: Reason would teach the abandonment of the unfulfillable wish; and, so, of the need for patience. It therefore may be said to be the higher study.

(Cathy gestures back, toward upstage. Pause.)

Lovely girl.

ANN: Yes?

CATHY: In the anteroom. (Pause) I find when conversation stalls it never indicates a want of subject—one may always talk about the weather—but rather some subject’s repression. What is it?

ANN: I’m leaving.

CATHY: Yes, we were expecting that announcement quite some time. Well. (Pause) Everything ends. That is neither a new nor a monumental understanding. But it’s true.

ANN (Points to the large manuscript on her desk): I’ve been reading your book.

CATHY: Is it a book?

ANN: Isn’t it?

CATHY: Well. You are the first to read it.

ANN: I’m honored.

CATHY: And, you know, I’ve been thinking of it, so long, as a . . .

ANN: . . . “A” . . .?

CATHY: A manuscript, a “work-in-progress” . . . A “collection of . . .”

ANN: Why would that not be a book?

CATHY: No, I’ll take your comment as an endorsement. Thank you.

ANN: You’re welcome, Cathy.

CATHY: If it is a book, it remains only to see what a publisher . . . And what the Public, but, of course, I am ahead of myself.

ANN: No, of course it’s a book . . . (Picks up the manuscript and reads) “When he came. The first time. He questioned me.”

CATHY: . . . oh, yes . . .

ANN (Reading): “And I said, in answer to him, ‘I revere Jesus, though I do not worship him. But I have the utmost respect, and I might say “love,” for those who do.’” It’s quite beautiful.

CATHY: You chose that phrase purposefully.

ANN: In order to?

CATHY: To compliment me.

ANN: No. But I would have. As with much of the book.

CATHY: Thank you.

ANN: And that was the first meeting.

CATHY: What was the first meeting?

ANN: You describe here . . .

CATHY: With?

ANN: The priest.

CATHY: The meeting with the priest?

ANN: Yes?

CATHY: The first time? I don’t know if that was it. But some time. During that first year.

ANN: In ...