SCENE SIX

Announcer: RADIO VOLTA and the HOOLIGAN PLAYERS PRESENT: A MATRIMONY of SCIENCE!!

SCENE ONE

<papers shuffling/books leafing> MOIRA. HANNAH does paper scratching/writing throughout.

LEE: January First, Nineteen Oh Seven! My Esteemed Diary:

So much paperwork! Would you believe that in order to record the day's events in your pages, I was forced to dig to the bottom of a hefty pile of radio-patent documents? My office is cluttering more and more every day since I have begun informing the world of my incipient invention --

<kazoo> HANNAH

THE AUDION. Fellow vacuum tube enthusiasts are contacting me from as far away as Berlin! The gods must surely be smiling upon me, for not only do I approach final filing status on this glorious New Year, but -

<sound of small, delicate steps, shutting door> MOIRA

-- a mistress for my heart as lovely as my first betrothed Lucille approaches - now - fate - mocking the wild plans of men has brought her to my door!

<feminine twitters> KATE

yes, Diary, despite my busy schedule and unwashed linens, my next-door neighbor, Miss Nora Stanton Blatch has fallen out of the aether and into my life. She has agreed to a formal courtship! It will be an affair of pride and respect for both of us, as she is the granddaughter of none other than that famous suffragette from the upstate, Elizabeth Cady Stanton! Her mother, in her brash frankness, has raised a... a hardy flower in Nora. Nora attended Cornell and earned a civil engineering degree, the first of her sex to do so. She now does some work for our fair New York City water department... I must confess that while she told me I was taken with the curve of her bosom,

<heavy breathing> KATE

rising up and down from the breathlessness of her tale... perhaps she designs a fountain or some other confection for the city's squares.

<wire hangers, books falling> MOIRA

Drat, diary, it seems that another pile of letters and papers has toppled over my wire sculpturing. Until later -- my heart is at work but light as can be -

LEE DE FOREST.

SCENE TWO

NORA:

<clinking teacup> HANNAH

January First, Nineteen Oh Seven.

Dear Journal,

There seem to be not enough minutes in the day to complete my work! I am taking a few precious minutes to write down my feelings and thoughts, however. Grandmother Stanton has always said that the written word, still hard won by so many women, is the wound rope which allows us to climb from the past into the future. I write for respite and to tell you of new excitements -- dare I speak them here?

Could you believe that I have a suitor, Journal? There is a man next door, the engineer Lee de Forest who, when I chatted with him about my work on the Barton aqueduct, proved most attentive, more than any whom profess to work with me and support me. He took my hand and I did not cringe at the gesture! Might I have found a partner in my life, one I thought would be bound to my family's struggle for uplift? Or at least someone who I can take without shame to Mama's suffrage-putlucks?

<paper slipping under a door> HANNAH

Oh Journal! As my eyes strayed to the door again in my daydream of Lee, a note has appeared under my door! The name Lee is emblazoned on the front, in a smooth, if... uh... rather decorative hand. I go to read it! Until next time, Journal!

NORA STANTON BLATCH.

SCENE THREE

January First, Nineteen Oh Seven:

My Esteemed Miss Blatch: I was working in my laboratory this morning when I found my attention drifting to your person, as I saw you passing my window with your muslin frock and mathematics primer. A worthy pursuit, the study of trigonometry! I recall my own fond days when I was a lad at school, sitting under the beech-trees of Alabam and whiling away an afternoon with sines and cosines.

If I might be so bold -- I extend the offer of my assistance with that sometimes tricky subject. Might we work on your studies together at that charming tea shop around the corner? I await your response.

Cordially,

LEE DE FOREST.

SCENE FOUR

January Third, Nineteen Oh Seven

Dear Mr. Deforest,

I received your note yesterday and I appreciate your offer of aid in my mathematical studies. Many thanks to you. In truth, though, I just needed the tables in the back to puzzle out a tricky gem-of-a-problem at work,

However, if you'd like to meet to discuss mathematics, I would be most happy for your aid and stimulating conversation! An algebraic equation concerning the flow of real fluids has fascinated me for weeks. Shall we meet soon? I'm afraid I no longer patronize the tea shop you mentioned, when I learned the owner was a city council member who speaks prominently against suffragettes and their causes. Also their biscuits are abominably dry. Perhaps we might take tea in my parlour and discuss a small infatuation I've been having with a particular element of the electrical sciences…

My thanks,

NORA STANTON BLATCH.

SCENE FIVE

LEE: February Fourteenth, Ninteen Oh Seven.

My Dear Nora,

<fade up on dramatic music> HANNAH SINGS

I had to tell you, Nora -- the afternoon we spent at the park, out of the gaze of your <pause> admirable and efficacious mother -- was a delight that the nymphs of Cyprus could not have equaled with their company. Your eyes, your face, your intelligence beaming from your smooth brow, your smile, your soft lips -- Would you forgive my inability to restrain my pen? Excuse this tired divorcee in his moment of passion. Even science is a devastatingly cold mistress in the face of your human heart.

<music sharply cut> HANNAH SINGS

Now to more prosaic matters -- as I discussed with you on Tuesday last I am about to incorporate my research, scientific properties, and patents into the Lee de Forest Radio Telephony Company.

<clinking flasks, sparks, percolating coffee building to a a crescendo> ALL OF US. NOT TO EXCESS!

Your skill with Erlenmeyer flasks and circuitry make you the perfect assistant in my public venture. What say you, Nora? Shall we be partners in this ardorous task?

Respond -- my hungry, moist eyes shall wait at the foot of my door for the fruit of your slim fingers, caressing words from your pen --

LEE DE FOREST.

SCENE SIX

NORA: March Fifteenth, Nineteen Oh Seven.

Oh Journal! Oh Diary!

Forgive my hasty scrawl -- but if I am forced to bind my feelings inside me one moment longer then I shall surely burst into tears and burst the seams of my dress and my heart and lord knows what else. He -- Lee -- has proposed marriage, of course!

<cut back sharply to dramatic music> HANNAH SINGS

We were working at his laboratory, evaluating his new Poulsen arc generator,

<buzz> PETRI

basking in the waves of radio frequency as if they were warm lake ripples. Overtaken with imagination and the excitement of it all, I fell backwards into his arms! Now, this is a position in which I have found myself quite often of late, but perhaps the unexpected timing of it pushed the words from his lips.

LEE: Oh, Nora!

<crackling radio waves> PETRI

NORA: Oh, Lee! These continuous radio waves thrill me with their --

LEE: Hush, dear Nora. Perhaps it is only the waves writhing in my mind which brings me to this, but I cannot prevent myself from asking you to -- to --

NORA: To what?

LEE: To marry me!

<crashing of instruments & books> ALL OF US? HANNAH mostly.

I want you to be my wife! To give that clarity of mind only you can provide! To bear my heir and keep my home! To -- to –

NORA: Lee? To what?

LEE: To be my partner in my -- in our great work, Nora. We will spread enlightenment to the masses through the crackling air! Will you help me? Will you be my partner, in mind and soul? Could we build together a matrimony of science?

NORA: Our good friend Voltarine has taught us that those that marry do ill -- would it be true with me? Could he be clasping me to his bosom in that insidious bondage that passes for love? His countenance, as he said these last words, dispelled my fears. He met me with clear and open eyes, wide and smooth, facing me without condescension.

Of course I said yes -- now the adventure awaits --

NORA STANTON BLATCH (soon to be DE FOREST!)

SCENE SEVEN

<boat noises: water, gulls, the occasional foghorn> MOIRA water. HANNAH gulls. PETRI foghorn.

NORA: February 26th, Nineteen Oh Seven!

Darling Mama,

Could I ever have imagined such happiness? These first moments of my marriage to Lee are so dear they have cast a scourge through all other memories of joy.

We sit together even now aboard the deck of the Lusitania, a proud steamer known for a thick hull and equity between all classes of passengers. Lee sits next to me, lost in an engineering text.

LEE: <snores>

NORA: Oh, pardon me, he seems to have fallen asleep beneath its smooth pages. The sun is warm today, and he had an… indulgent lunch.

LEE: <burps>

NORA: We continue to discuss issues related to our work in our travels, as we’ll be showing Lee’s papers and technology to many potential investors and like-minded scientists once we reach the Continent.

<water, gulls> MOIRA water. HANNAH gulls.

NORA: Lee, wake up I have just thought of the most darling solution to our problem with regenerative circuitry! You see

< footsteps > MOIRA

LEE: (yawn) What were you saying?

NORA: Merely that the tank circuit must be properly tuned in the relative values of the condenser and the coil! Ha, I’ve solved it!

LEE: Mmm. Lovely, Nora. The sea air keeps you most sharp and

< footsteps> MOIRA

-- why, it’s the captain! Good day to you, sir. I was hoping to --

CAPTAIN: Oh, Mr. de Forest. The boys in engineering were looking for you earlier. They hoped you might join them over tea to discuss the potential of radio in trolling for icebergs, other ships, you know. Dreadful waste of time if you ask me.

LEE: Really.

CAPTAIN: Mrs. de Forest. Hello.

NORA: Good afternoon, Captain Culbertson.

CAPTAIN: A bit blustery for a creature like yourself to be sunning on the open deck, don't you think? Your cheeks will be scarred and pocked with the salt air.

NORA: Hmm. I don't mind the air at all. The only bluster which concerns me can be found in such out-of-date assumptions about the constitution of women. We have buoyant anatomies, wouldn't you think? Bearing children as we do, and --

<foghorn> PETRI

Perhaps, journal, Lee's distraction can be explained by the excitement of the wedding and our travel. I am often suggesting diversions, like math puzzles and shuffleboard, but his mind is elsewhere.. Until we find ourselves alone in our cabin that is. <giggle>

I'll write again from land, dear Mama.

SCENE EIGHT

LEE: March First, Nineteen Oh Seven.

Dear Mr. Johnson --

In reference to the first, second, and third notices I received at my residence over the last months, regarding a loan of one thousand dollars.I must confess that I have no idea what you're talking about. Why, I, Lee de Forest, am a simple milkman! I certainly have no idea what any sort of check made out to...

LEE <to himself>: Oh, lord, who am I trying to kid here? Can't very well write that...! Ach! Where's the bourbon? It's somewhere in this infernal cabin! Dratting correspondence -- creditors -- on my honeymoon no less --

<clink Glug glug glug. A deep breath, for calming purposes.> MOIRA glasses.

My Estimable Friend Mr. Johnson,

Sir! I would like to thank you for your loans to the Deforest Wireless Telephony Company. I have received your recent inquiries regarding the continued delay of your dividends. I write to encourage you: to think not of past or present gain, but of the future! Some may say that Wireless Telephony is a gimmick, that the technology is risky and unproven. As the owner of a major daily newspaper, you know the value of Taking Risks on New Ideas. The Skeptic thinks of Radio as a mere telephone without wires. I believe that tomorrow, Radio will be an Electrical Newspaper.

Imagine cheaply manufactured radios that recieve without transmitting. Imagine just one giant transmitter under your control! I believe that Print, Talking Pictures and Radio Telephony progress down the same glorious road of converngence. Your competitors, with only one Medium, will be at a vast disadvantage in the face of your operational synergy! The responsibility of inter-networking the forums of the day to our beautiful democracy will rest with --

< footsteps? door opening?> MOIRA. what to do here?

NORA: Dearest? You've been hiding in the cabin all afternoon. The Hendricksons are waiting at the shuffleboard court! They have herring snacks!

LEE: <pause. beat. beat.> Salted herring?

NORA: What's that behind your back?

LEE: Oh, nothing, nothing..

NORA: Did you write to Mama yet like I asked? <seductively> There'll be those tea

biscuits you like waiting for us at the hotel in Paris.

LEE: <seductively>: Let the tea biscuits rot...!

<smooching -- foreplay sounds -- oh yes, oh, you adorable thing, mmm! oh, oh! my own hardy flower! oh lee! oh, nora! mmm! bring me your sweet kisses!> be creative

SCENE NINE:

NORA: March Nineteenth, Ninteen Oh Seven

Oh Journal:

I am in a state of emotional upset unlike any I have ever experienced -- I sit with your battered pages in a -- a bar of some sort, a Paris pub-- After a cherry brandy I should feel calmer. I'll -- i'll write down what has happened and perhaps the effort will settle my nerves.

<fade up on french music, clinking glasses, murmured conversation> DAN music -- feel free to fade up gradually as soon as NORA begins to speak. HANNAH MOIRA glasses, conversation.

NORA: Excuse me? Barman. Bar-man.

FRENCH BARMAN: Oui.

NORA: Could I have a cherry brandy, please?

FRENCH BARMAN: Excusez-moi, Madame, mais je ne vous comprends pas.

NORA: Oh, no no. And I don't have my dictionary -- cerise? Brandy cerise.

FRENCH BARMAN: Vin de cerise? Naturellement.

NORA: Merci. Thank you.

<fade down from bar effects> DAN. the french music must be totally out by the kazoo noise!

Journal -- we were preparing to demonstrate the transmission properties of the Audion

<kazoo> HANNAH

from the top of the Eiffel tower –

<Eiffel sound effects. WIND.> PETRI, HANNAH, MOIRA. circular breathing! subtle! Remember wind screen on mike. NOTE DAN -- no music for you here! yay!

I carried a somewhat unwieldy bag of coils behind Lee so he might keep step with the unburdened French Minister of Energy -- only to discover upon my arrival at the top that Lee was so busy with the Minister and photographers at the tower’s peak that had arranged the equipment improperly.

LEE: You will be amazed with the device, Mr. Minister. The receivers at the bottom of the tower will be able to hear me loud and clear.

MINISTER: Fascinating, Monsieur de Forest. And what, besides your charming voice, have you ready to cast down to those receivers?

LEE: We have an excellent recording of Missus Harriet Stanton Blatch, my wife's mother, reading a speech on woman's suffrage.

MINISTER: Your mother, Mrs. de Forest? Indeed? Tell me quickly, madam, we are about to begin!

NORA: <catching her breath> Yes, she has recorded a number of her tracts and pamphlets on the... oh, my lord! Lee? Lee, I can't find the piece of double-aught gage copper wire we're going to need to connect the transmitter to the power source. Lee?

MINISTER: Ladies and gentlemen, Mesdames et messieurs, we would like to present Monsieur de Forest and his amazing radio technology! As we speak, men on the ground below us walk about with radio receivers, ready to hear our voices cast down below as if time and space could be bent between our fingers.

NORA: Lee? The copper wire.

LEE: What are you saying, dearest?

NORA <in a hissed whisper>: We don't have the wire we need to connect the transmitter to its power source! What are we going to do?

LEE: Well, do we have any more copper wire that we could cut to the right length?

NORA <rummaging in bag>: Wait, let me check -- no, Lee, there isn't anything in here we could use.

LEE: All right, all right, let me stall for a minute. Find something! Anything! Otherwise you'll have to go back down and get something we can use?

NORA: I'll have to? What?

<BAR. clinking glasses, french music, pouring, conversation,> DAN music, suddenly up. HANNAH MOIRA other noises.

NORA: Well, Journal, what was I to do? I couldn't think of how or where to find the proper length wire in those few minutes I had been alloted. How could Lee leave me to deal with such a mistake, one we should have addressed together? Luckily I remembered the measurements in the hem of my hooped petticoat, measured only weeks before as I gathered the trousseau for my wedding...

<fabric ripping> MOIRA. DAN, music off suddenly.

<EIFFEL. wind noises.> PETRI, MOIRA, HANNAH

LEE: -- really, Minister, truly marvelous, how the Ionian columns stood as a backdrop for all that meant -- Nora? Nora, whatever has happened to your dress? Your petticoats are trailing -- gather yourself imme--

NORA: No time for that now, Lee! Here is your copper wire! You might want to tear off the bits of cloth and hem still around the center with your teeth.

LEE: Mr. Minister -- ladies and gentlemen -- without further adieu, from the shores of America, I bring you a famous voice of freedom, Harriet Stanton Blatch, conveyed to you by the de Stanton Radio Telephony Company and the Audion!

<recording of HARRIET speech. not too loud, as it must be spoken over halfway through!.> HANNAH, unless we record. which seems unlikely. PETRI -- subdued zap!

HARRIET: What is a powerful woman? Is she a creature who makes her desires known by standing mutely in a corner, raising her eyebrows and turning the corners of her mouth into a slight smile or frown, manipulating with passive and small-handed power? Is she someone fluent of speech,

<CUE LEE HERE, to speak over Harriet.> LEE, HANNAH adjust to Lee volume.

who stands before a crowd and uses the practiced manipulations of rhetoric to convice an audience of frowning men? Is she a rabble rouser, a person who musters those without direction to a one-shot, brutely expressed cause? I, Harriet Blatch, would like to tell all of you today that she is all of these things and none of these things, all at once. She . . .

LEE <whispered over the broadcast>: Well, Nora, it's lucky for you I stalled so long, otherwise they would have been on to us!

NORA: Lucky for me? Isn't it lucky for you that I found you a useable piece of wire? I had to pull it out of the upper hoop of this blasted petticoat with my bare hands!

LEE: Yes, dearest, but if you hadn't lost the cut piece of wire, we wouldn't be having this problem in the first place, now would we?

NORA: I? I lost the wire? I don't see what causes you to think that --

LEE: Well, Nora, you were carrying the bag of supplies, lobbing it back and forth over your shoulders rather casually Did anything tumble out on the way up?

NORA: You didn't pack it, Lee. My word!!

<applause> EVERYONE

MINISTER: Mr. Deforest, we're getting a wave from the officials holding the receivers, and it seems your mother-in-law came in loud and clear! My congratulations! Now, if the two of you could pose for a photo -- uh -- Madame de Forest, whatever has happened to your dress? The shape at the bottom has gone all -- oh, never mind, we'll make it a shot from the waist up.

LEE: That would be splendid! Come here, Nora dear, and let us both put our arms around my lovely invention. That'll make a the cover of Le Monde for certain, now, won't it? Nora? Nora, where are you going?

<footsteps> MOIRA

LEE: Hmm... well, in that case, why don't we try for a full photograph of just me with the Audion posed on this table? Then your readers will get a full sense of the height and breadth of the machine and...

<sound of an old-time photo snapping.>HANNAH BALLOON

<bar noises> DAN music right after balloon. HANNAH MOIRA glasses conversation.

I couldn't believe that in a moment of public frenzy he would be reduced to such a callous creature. Have I seen his true nature, exposed on the top of that tower like so much bare mountain rock? My hand trembles as I write this. Another brandy perhaps.

NORA: Barmaster? Barmaster?

BARMASTER: Oui, madam.

NORA: Another brandy, if you please.

BARMASTER: It will be, how you say, your six cerise, madam.

NORA: Yes, I know. <beat> I have a lot to write down! Oh journal, what will Lee say to me when I return to our hotel in this state? Perhaps he will not notice. He left with some young tourists to see some kind of collegiate entertainment -- like watching a sheep in a dress dancing. I just don't know. I -- donnn't.... uh...

< Nora's head thunking down on the table in front of her.> KATE

BARMASTER: Madam? Madam? (DAN, music off! hurrah!)

SCENE TEN

<boat noises: water, gulls> MOIRA water. HANNAH gulls.

LEE: May First, Nineteen Oh Seven.

Darling Nora,

Oh, here we are. We are here. You and I are here and here we are. Our ocean-going is about to end - the Statue of Liberty is in sight and we will disembark from the ship before we know it, and I find myself feeling a bit nostalgic already.

Oh Nora, again I must thank you for returning to me after I treated you so abominably in Paris. The month of separation I spent in bachelor rooms across western Europe truly made me appreciate the depths of your perfection -- you are pliant femininity and stubborn masculinity well blent.

Even now, you sit with a black felt pen and a white sheet, marking lines for a quilt, it seems. You do not know it but your eyes sparkle with a joy I rarely see when you engage yourself with our equations and mechanics. As I am your husband, I feel some small right to tell you - I think you will enjoy motherhood and the retired life of a woman raising a child. I'm not sure yet if I have successfully impregnated you on this vacation but I plan to do so as soon as possible.

LEE (to Nora): Oh dear Nora - I must tell you what I am writing. I am writing a little note to my tender truffle - you must be able to guess who that is - I - what are you doing?

NORA: Mmm? Oh, just finishing the lettering on this sheet here.

LEE: Lettering? Huh. Is that a new Parisian style of quilt making? Oh love, are you making a quilt of my name? How sweet.

NORA: Not exactly, Lee dear. Oh - are we pulling close to shore already?

LEE: Yes, Nora. Isn't it sad? I'll miss our shuffleboard games espe - Nora, where are you going?

<footsteps>MOIRA

<sheet snapping> MOIRA

NORA: Lee, pass me a bit of that chewing-gum that you put under your seat, would you?

LEE: What? I would never? Nora! What does that say? What have you -

<foghorn, ship bell> PETRI foghorn. HANNAH ship bell (COWBELL)

SAILOR 1: Ahoy! Throw me a bowline to starboard! (DAN)

SAILOR 2: Avast, you scurvy dog! (PETRI)

WOMAN ONE: Oh look, Nettie, there's your Aunt Elisabeth's ship coming in now -- she'll have your new spring ball gown!

NETTIE: But I want to wear the gown that Andrea wore to her - Oh Mama, there's a banner on the side.

WOMAN ONE: How festive! Can you read it, Papa?

PAPA: Hmmph. Can't see it from here.

WOMAN ONE: Try squinting, dear. Squeeze your cheeks up a bit there.

PAPA: Hmmph -- it says -- it says -- well, I'll be. Now you don't listen, Nettie.

NETTIE: Aw, Papa. What's it say?

PAPA: It says -- it says -- VOTES FOR WOMEN! In big black letters. Ugh, how crass!

WOMAN ONE: I would say so!

NETTIE: I think it sounds -- nifty! Whee!

PAPA: Hilda, get her out of here at once!

NORA: Hah! Lee, my banner seems to be an unqualified success!

<photograph bulbs> HANNAH balloons!

I see the flash of photographers' bulbs on the shore! Oh Lee, could we have guessed that a simple drop of cloth could spread the message of equity between the sexes as well as our darling

<kazoo>

Audion? And just a bedsheet, no foreign investments needed for this kind of message... Lee? Lee, where have you gone?

<more ship noises> PETRI foghorn. HANNAH gulls.

<Reporters start to mob Nora.> GENERAL MURMURED TUMULT ALL!

REPORTER ONE: Excuse me, please, ma'am. I’m from the New York Post -- we'd like to know how you reconcile your suffrage activities with your delicate sensibilities as a woman.

NORA: But that's the point. Voting is an American right, and it doesn't have anything to do with a delicate constitution --

REPORTER TWO: -- Marcus J. Wirick from the Daily Mirror -- then you admit that a woman is inherently more delicate and gentle than a man? Not suited to the same work?

NORA: What? That's not what I'm saying at all.. you're twisting my...

SCENE ELEVEN

<Laboratory sparks and noises.> PETRI

LEE: Nora, the triodes Reginald sent over still aren’t working. Have they been steeped in some sort of snake oil? I just don’t understand.

NORA: No no, dearest. It’s just that he didn’t design a flange around the socket. No physical integrity to the connections.

LEE: Hmmm . . . I suppose that could be true. That man is always hacking his equipment together out of odds and ends! Perhaps I will tack on a flange with a bit of arcing.

<Electrical noises: big long zap> PETRI

NORA: Oooh, well done, Lee! A deft maneuver – you didn’t even break the glass through the thermal effects.

LEE: I have a steady hand, pumpkin! Now, what else do we need?

NORA: Perhaps the socket could have a tension-actuated locking mechanism as well. That should make the device reliable for long use....

LEE: Good point, Nora!

<nora faints – thunk as she hits the ground> KATE

LEE: Nora – oh Nora - are you all right?

NORA: Oh my, I am sorry, Lee. I’ve just been feeling nauseated in the mornings, so I haven’t had anything to eat.

LEE: I have some sweetbread in the back. Some toast, I think. Herring, too.

NORA: Do you have any anchovies? I’ve had a craving for those, today. Or pickled cucumbers -- oh, I feel faint again . . .

LEE: Well, sit, nora, sit! Oh Nora -- (pause) I do believe that I know what ails you. Our matrimony seems about to yield another – ah, less scientific fruit. Oh, I thank the gods for our good fortune.

NORA: <gasps> Of course. I have conceived our child! I am pregnant!

LEE: No more hauling bags of wires up the Eiffel tower for you, love!

<they laugh and chatter together, fade out> KATE AND DAVE

SCENE TWELVE

NORA: June Thirtieth, Ninteen Oh Seven.

Dear Mama,

Lee and I thank you for the boxes of baby clothes you have sent us! Our child will most certainly enjoy the benefits of those lovely, hardy warm things.

Thanks also for the engineering texts you sent by post. You would find it hard to believe how difficult it is to get up-to-date periodicals in New Jersey. I love many things about our new suburban home but the provincial reading habits of the populace are not one of them.

Really, Mama, women's rights have found a particularly muddy backwater here in Riverlure. Men will hold the door for me as I enter and then speak as if I wasn't there. Also, due to my 'delicate condition', I'm forced to spend most of my days puttering around the house and the town, rather than working in the de Forest laboratories. I wish he understood that it was more taxing for me to wander about the town without a thing to do.

Perhaps I could come and stay with you for a few weeks? Oh, Mama! I need access to my books and to the public transportation system. We could make an excuse to Lee, couldn't we? He might think that a visit with you fits in his understanding of what I need for my health. New Jersey chokes me with its infernal cleanliness and lack of streetcars!

Many thanks, NORA.

SCENE THIRTEEN

<staticky opera music grows louder throughout scene> HANNAH. uh.

NORA: Lee, we’ve been trying to find the source of that staticky hum for hours now! This is infuriating.

LEE: We are getting close, dear -- I can feel it in the pit of my stomach – just like a pianist knows shen his instrument is just slightly out of tune.

NORA: Perhaps you can feel a solution coming, but I remain confounded. So strange --the structure of this contraption seems so familiar to me.

LEE: Silly little flower. Impossible. This is a completely new device, unlike any that have gone before it --

NORA: Wait a moment, I've got it! This machine is almost identical to professor Amos Dolbears regenerative tube circuit! Oh, Lee! We read about them in the same English journal.

LEE: (half to himself) Drat, I thought I had thrown that rag out in the rubbish bin . . .

NORA: It's identical, yes – except for this thrice-tapped coil in the middle of the output stage --

LEE: Dolbears, Fessenden, bah! Bah to all of them, charlatans all!

NORA: ah -- And I think that this third tap on the coil to earth is just creating a ground loop. I know; I’ll desolder it!

LEE: No, you hellcat, no, not with the circuit charged! That condenser has enough electricity to blow up the room!

NORA: I know what I'm doing!

<massive zap> PETRI

<crystal-clear opera music> HANNAH

NORA: Ahhh, there we are! Much better.

LEE: Do you realize you could have ruined my work with the spark from that discharge?

<Music fades lower, eventually to nothing> DAN, turn down hannah mike...

NORA: Ruined your work? Or blown myself up, perhaps. Blown up the mother of your child. Oh Lee, I don’t think I’ll ever understand you! How can’t you realize that Professor Dolbears’ circuit is perfectly functional without this sloppy inductor you patched in there to make the circuit look like your own development? How couldn’t you have seen that?

LEE: Well, maybe if you weren’t always in the way, interrupting my thought process with your “improvements,” I would have been able to come up with an original idea.

NORA: Oh, really? Well, here’s an original idea . . . I quit! I quit everything! The marriage, the partnership, all of it! I can’t believe I was taken in by such a buffoon!

LEE: Divorce? Bah! A judge would never listen to your plea! I’ve treated you as fairly as any modern husband would treat his wife!

NORA: A judge? I thought that we could settle this calmly, at least -- but if that’s what you want, fine! I’ll see you in court! You can contact me though Mama if you need to talk to me or your daughter!

<footsteps; slamming door> MOIRA

LEE: A buffoon? Me? I’ll show her! I’ll resolder this tap on the coil and prove to her that I’m a --

<buzz, crash, electric explosion> PETRI

LEE: Nora! Come back!

SCENE FOURTEEN

NORA: Dear Mr. De Forest:

Enclosed in this package are the seven or so letters you have placed under the door to my mother’s apartment over the last week. After you pleas left the kingdom of reason and entered the realm of pathetic childish bleatings, both Mama and I thought it would be best not to give them the respect accorded to grown, literate adults. Please understand that I am never coming back, and that our contact will be limited to your visits with our daughter and the other matters noted here.

I need you to return my books, my electrical generator, and the balance of the money you owe me as soon as possible.

<grudgingly, more forgiving, not by too much though!>

I do hope you are happy and in good health. I am not cruel, Lee -- I do belive that some part of your heart wanted to treat me as your equal. However, you proved to be too much a creature of this barbarous time to do so. Good intentions alone cannot pluck a man from the ugly influence of a patriarchal upbringing. Your daughter and I will do well enough on our own, with the name and legacy of Stanton Blatch to comfort us.

Sincerely,

NORA STANTON BLATCH (nee DE FOREST).

<folding paper> KATE

SCENE FIFTEEN

LEE:

<sobbing, snuffling> DAVE. DO THIS 500% over the top!!! insane sobbing!

Dear Nora:

<paper crumpling> DAVE. Angrily, roughly crumple that paper! :)

<calmer now> I was born to be robbed! Robbed of the best college associations, social influences, opportunities to invent, robbed of the fruit of my years of toil! Not once, but twice I was robbed of my wife, of a house and a home, and now robbed of so much of my childs life -- her daily growth in charm and love -- her first companionship! Surely something is wrong with my character, some vital lack there must be.

<beat. more urgently and in the tone of a lesson hard-learned>

I have not been willful enough. I have permitted myself always to be thus defrauded and despoiled!