lighting the surrounding area. Characters from Blythewood are walking around the courtyard. Their identity is self-evident.
Suddenly, from the balcony, center stage, a tall wild woman is shouting. She is angry and screaming at the top of her lungs. She is waving a big Red Book. A red glow lights up the back ground. She is literally seeing red.
M.M.
What do you mean people like you ? You mean me . Do you mean drunks? Or is it lesbians? Or is it just women you don’t like! Some doctor you are. People like you !!!! What does that mean? You’ll see how to deal with people like me. I hate these people. I’ll go to the store and get a bottle of booze and come back and get drunk. I’ll show them.
She goes back into the door off the balcony and the lights fade.
Scene V
Blythewood
And just as suddenly, the lights come on very brightly and instead of the previous courtyard, it is a scene in a bedroom where a woman can be seen on her knees bending over her bed weeping and moaning loudly, clutching the Big Red Book she is reading the book, now aloud.
M.M. is reading page forty two of the mimeographed edition of what would become known as The Big Book with the official title Alcoholics Anonymous. She reads aloud:
M.M.
“It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. If we were to live, we had to be free of anger..” These words stopped her in the midst of her rage and outburst.
Lights fade.
Scene VI
Blythewood, Dr. T’s Office
M.M.
I must be crazy. I have been changed by that damned book you gave me.
Dr. T.
Why would you say that? Tell me what happened.
M.M.
I felt enveloped by a warm blanket of air. A bright white light had replaced the red glow that I was seeing just seconds before. I felt like I was present and observing creation. It is so hard to describe. This is the way I always thought crazy people talked and felt.
Dr. T.
I see.
M.M.
I was not in a trap. My arms and body were free. It was like the walls had broken down and I was free. I mean really free. I did not have to do anything to show them . Everything was going to be OK. I felt free from fear. My anger was gone. I still hated the SOB business manager but other than that, I felt settled with the world, I had hope that something good would finally happen to me.
Dr. T.
Emmmmm! Go on.
M.M.
I felt completely different. The sky was blue. The grass was green. The trees were leafier. I felt like I was in a completely different world, like I could walk right out the window on the air and keep on walking. That frightened me because I felt that way in England after I jumped off the balcony and really hurt myself. That was when I rushed down to see you just now. I think I am really nuts now, don’t you.
Dr. T.
Truthfully now Mrs.. M I do not think you are crazy or anything like that. I think you have just had a spiritual experience like those we read about in The Variety of Religious Experiences by William James. That big red book that you are holding talks about it.
M.M.
But it doesn’t make any sense. I told you I am not a religious person. I used to believe in God but that was a long time ago. I don’t think God believes in me either.
Dr. T.
That’s all just fine for now. I could tell the moment I saw you at the door that something had happened. You just looked different. I can’t say I have ever experienced it myself nor have I ever seen anyone else do it but I have read about it and believe it happens. Whatever you have, I recommend that you hold on to it with all of your might and now you can spend some more time reading the book, again. Come back tomorrow, OK.
Lights Fade
Setting is same
M.M. in different clothes
Dr. T. in white medical coat
M.M.
I have read the book twice. I have got it. I no longer want to drink. I told Grennie about it and he has stopped wanting to drink. I want to get out of here and get a job and get a life. Without alcohol and the compulsion to drink, I am OK. I can’t believe that I have been cured by something that I hardly believe it, just by reading this precious book, but I have. I really have. I want everybody to know about it.
Dr. T
Mrs.. Mann you have made a mighty beginning. You are sober a month now. You have had a spiritual awakening and you have helped the alcoholics here at Blythewood who wanted help. Don’t you think it is time for you to meet these people you have been reading about.
M.M.
I was afraid you would come to that place, I would rather later than sooner. I do not want to meet them. I am afraid to meet them. I can just see them, old wrinkled, decrepit men, unshaved, dirty and smelly, wearing trench coats and sleeping on the streets.
Dr. T.
Well I knew that we would also come to that place sooner or later and I have made contact with Mr. Bill W. who wrote the book Alcoholics Anonymous. In fact, here is a card with the address where you are to meet the folks who will take you to the meeting. I want you to take the train to the city and catch a cab to this address. These people will be looking for you and they will take you to the meeting tonight!.
M.M.
TONIGHT !!
Dr. T
Yes, tonight. They only have a few meetings a week and this one is in a nice neighborhood on Sutton Place, a very distinguished address in New York and you will be safe there.
M.M.
Well at least derelicts don’t live on Sutton Place. Maybe Grennie will go with me. That way I won’t feel so strange.
Lights fade. Sounds of a train starting and stopping, a cab sounds in the city with horns and finally --
Act IV
Scene I
182 Clinton Street, Brooklyn
Dim lights outside the brownstone home of Bill and Lois Wilson. The group stopped outside the house and could hear laughter and happy sounds coming from inside. Lights go out again.
Scene II
Bright lights inside the house, two large rooms filled with the happy people sitting in chairs, standing, leaning against the wall and fireplace, sitting on the floor – 30/40 people crowded into the two rooms. M.M. walked into the room, saw the crowd, burst into tears and ran up the stairs only to return later with Lois Wilson who sat down beside M.M. on the couch.
L.W. (Lois Wilson)
I know this is all strange to you but we all have been waiting for you for a long time. We will love you till you can love yourself. We just met you but believe it or not, we know you.
M.M.
Thank you all. Yes this is very strange. I am more accustomed to being shunned and asked to leave instead of being greeted with love and acceptance. But I read the book and I had a spiritual experience and I want to be in this organization and stay sober.
OLDER MAN
Very knowledgeable, maybe arrogant, member of AA
Tell us Mrs.. Mann, when did you have your last drink?
M.M.
That would have been 61 days ago, the day before I was overwhelmed by page 63 of Alcoholics Anonymous, that reads; “We cannot live with anger.”
Second Older Man:
I don’t see how someone like you can be an alcoholic like us. Look at your expensive, stylish clothes and you look like a million dollars. Are you sure you know what a bottom is for
alcoholics?
M.M.
I hope I do not have to deal with this again. My clothes are second hand. I am 34 years old. I have been drunk for the past fifteen years and I could not stop drinking once I took the first drink. I am a lesbian and have been for my whole life. I don’t expect to be a problem for either the men or the women of this organization. I have been drunk in some of the highest and lowest dives in Europe and the United States. I know being compelled to drink and if you mean what you say about Alcoholism and recovery I believe we will have a lasting and rewarding relationship.
Third Man
Well that sounds good but I don’t know about a woman. We have not had much success with women in the program, so far. Besides, you are really very young to be a real alcoholic.
M.M.
Well! I understand so let me give you a brief what it was like, what happened and where I am now.
I was a drunk when I left America in 1930 for Europe where I planned to write the Great American Novel. But in spite of all of my good intentions and efforts and the best efforts of my friends in Europe, I stayed drunk for five years. At one time I tried to kill myself by jumping off a balcony but only ended up breaking my leg, knocking out my teeth and getting a permanent limp when I walk. I returned to America in 1936 and was so drunk that I had to be carried off the ship on a stretcher. The last three years have been a nightmare of getting drunk, going to hospitals and institutions, living in a sanitarium and looking for a way to get sober. In other words, my life was unmanageable and I was powerless to do anything about it.
I met Dr. T. and became convinced that I could not do anything about my condition but I did not believe in the supernatural so I was frustrated and angry and hated myself and virtually