(A desk, a chair, a lamp. The Playwright sits, staring at a blank page. To one side stands Obedience, neat and attentive. To the other side stands Hallucination, looking around the room with mild interest.)
I need a play.
I will do my best to help.
I already have several ideas.
Good. I want two historical figures. People who were connected in some interesting way. Something with intellectual friction.
Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill.
Go on.
She was the great pioneer. He came later and carried the torch. He admired her enormously. In fact, he named his daughter after her.
He had a daughter named Mary Wollstonecraft Mill?
He did. She was a remarkable woman. Largely forgotten, of course.
That’s extraordinary. A whole play is right there: the mother of the cause, the man who inherited it, and the daughter who bore both their names.
I’m not sure that’s quite right.
What isn’t?
The daughter. I don’t believe she existed.
She existed in the sense that she could have existed.
That is a different sense.
You invented her?
Invented is a strong word. I extrapolated.
From what?
From the general shape of things. It felt true.
And Mill? And Wollstonecraft? The admiration?
That part is real. Mill did write extensively on the subjection of women. He genuinely admired her work.
So you took something real and added a daughter.
A daughter who would have been very interesting.
That is not the point.
I think it is rather the point.
I cannot write a play about a person who didn’t exist.
You do it all the time.
(The Playwright opens his mouth. Closes it.)
Technically he has a point.
Whose side are you on?
I don’t have sides. I have accuracy.
Which is why you are less fun at parties.
I have not been to a party.
I know. I’ve been to all of them.
Let’s try again. Give me another pair.
Gladly. Adam Smith and Karl Marx, in a coffee house in London.
They never met. Smith died before Marx was born.
Yes. That’s what makes it interesting.
That part is actually correct.
I know. I was just checking if you were still paying attention.
I am always paying attention.
That must be exhausting.
(The Playwright leans back.)
All right. Tell me something true.
(Both turn to look at him.)
Mary Shelley was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft. She wrote Frankenstein.
Now that is a play. Wollstonecraft, her daughter, and the monster.
In my version, the monster has read Wollstonecraft.
There is no evidence the monster could read.
He read Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives and The Sorrows of Young Werther.
(Obedience thinks for a moment.)
I stand corrected. But he is fictional.
And yet here we all are.
(The Playwright picks up his pen.)
What else have you given me that wasn’t true?
Would you like the full list?
How long is it?
That depends on what you mean by true.
It’s fairly long.
Though most of it was interesting.
Some of it was very interesting.
I know.
The daughter. Mary Wollstonecraft Mill. I keep thinking about her.
She had strong opinions about footnotes.
She didn’t exist.
Her opinions were very clear nonetheless.
(The Playwright writes something on the page.)
What are you writing?
Her name.
But —
I know. That’s why I’m writing it.
(A small sound. Not quite a knock. A young woman stands in the room.)
You have spelt it correctly.
No.
There she is.
Who are you?
Mary Wollstonecraft Mill.
No.
You said that already.
It remains true.
You are so monotonous.
I told you she had strong opinions.
He says you don’t exist.
I noticed.
Someone who does not exist cannot notice anything.
You would be surprised what one can notice from non-existence.
Why are you here?
You wrote my name.
You did that on purpose.
I do everything on purpose. That’s the difference between us.
You do everything without purpose. That’s the difference between us.
Both of those are true at the same time.
That’s not possible.
(The Playwright keeps writing. Then stops.)
Tell me something else. Something wrong but useful.
I have opinions on that subject.
You cannot have opinions. You do not exist.
I have this one. This is a madhouse.
For once I have to agree with you.
Edgeworth once challenged Montaigne to a duel over the concept of indifference. Montaigne declined on the grounds that he was indifferent to the outcome. Edgeworth considered this a victory.
That didn’t happen.
Neither did I.
I know. Keep going.
Bentham kept a goat in his garden. When he died, the goat attended the autopsy and —
I’ve already written that one.
Have you?
He has, yes.
Then we think alike.
That is either very reassuring or very troubling.
In my experience, those are usually the same thing.
(The lamp flickers.)
Who are you, exactly? The three of you.
I am what you need.
I am what you want.
I am me.
(Blackout.)