[The opening scene is the same as for Acts I and II.]

        JACK
I had an undergraduate crush on Nathaniel Hawthorne long before the one I had on Shaw.  And
it has been of longer and more constant duration.  I admired the skill with which Hawthorne could
construct a story, and the profundity of his probings into those "secret places of the human heart."

        CHRISTINE
That was back before you were in the Air Force?

        JACK
Yes . . . back when I was very young.  In those days I aspired to be a great writer myself, to write
stories that would make people think, novels that would leave them marveling at my wisdom.  And
Hawthorne was the master--not James, who was too remote, not Twain, who was Hemingway's
model, not Hemingway, who was everyone else's model back in those days, not Melville, whom I
hardly knew existed until later, but Hawthorne, the master craftsman who was also a wise man, a
moral teacher.  If I could only capture his truth for our time--do what he'd done for Spenser,
Milton, and Bunyan--it would be a noble achievement.  I actually wrote about a hundred pages
of a novel modeled on The House of the Seven Gables, using the old house I had grown up in
in Northern Illinois as the central character and passing three generations in review--while the
ghosts of hidden sins, and a howling St. Bernard dog, haunted the place.  The most admirable way
in which I had imitated Hawthorne was to burn that manuscript when I got back from Okinawa and
was trying to do something with my writing again.

        CHRISTINE
I didn't even know you'd ever written things like that, Dad.

        JACK
Oh, yes . . . when I was young.  I'd first thought of a dramatic adaptation of The Scarlet Letter
back during that early Hawthorne enthusiasm, before the Korean War, when I was re-reading the
novel for an American Literature course.  I noticed how easily it could be visualized as a series of
scenes, most involving just two characters, and thought all it would take to turn it into a play would
be to lift out the dialogue and write a few stage directions.  At the time I thought this was a personal
discovery, but later found recognition of the novel's inherent dramatic structure to be a cliche of
Hawthorne criticism.  I didn't do anything with the idea at the time anyway, was too busy trying to
write serious "original" fiction--and "hidden meaning" poetry, where only I knew what all the
allusions were, and the ultimate comment was blasphemous, of course--but undecipherable even
for God.  When I was young I was young.

        CHRISTINE
I think that's great.  But then you did decide to do The Scarlet Letter as a play . . . and then
Mother played the part of Hester.

        JACK
Yes, but it wasn't that easy.  Once back in school, an older "Budweiser" man, with more muted
ambitions, and then when I became a theatre major, I considered that dramatic adaptation again.
I hadn't lost my reverence for Hawthorne or The Scarlet Letter--nor do I ever expect to--and
I had seen an adaptation of Young Goodman Brown that had worked pretty well.  I had
abstracted about twenty-five typed pages of dialogue from the novel as the first step, and had
soon discovered that there'd be much more to it than just adding a few stage directions.
Hawthorne does a great deal, particularly in his management of supernatural suggestion, in long
passages of exposition.

        CHRISTINE
And then how about Pearl?  How do you get a baby to cry in the right places?  And then she talks
a lot as a little girl.

        JACK
That's bad enough . . . I remember the problems Betty had with  handling "little Pearl" . . . but not
as bad for the author as trying to duplicate the variations Hawthorne rings on the symbolism of the
scarlet letter without the resource of all that narrative exposition.  By that time, however, I had
come to believe that anything a novelist can do a dramatist can do better, was into Shakespeare
and feeling a little sorry for Hawthorne for living in an age that denied itself the revelation of tragic
drama in verse.  Still, the more involved I became the more admiration I had for Hawthorne's sense
of theatre, of the dramatic scene, particularly for his skill in closing a scene effectively--his sense of
the curtain.  So, while it became clear that it was going to be more difficult than I had imagined, I
became more and more convinced that The Scarlet Letter could be a very powerful play.  And,
all things considered, I like to believe it was.

        CHRISTINE
And you did it as your master's thesis?

        JACK
Yes, directing a play was a standard MA project in theatre, and I'd been working on this
adaptation as a possibility for that purpose ever since I'd signed up for the program.  Then Betty
had come down the aisle in Baker Auditorium and into my life, and, when the thought first came to
me, during Pygmalion rehearsals, it was like that light bulb you see in cartoons going on in my
head--I knew that I had to do it, because I had found my Hester Prynne.

        CHRISTINE
I try to imagine her in that role . . . or doing it myself.

        JACK
She was perfect.  You could argue that she had too much "Kansas sophistication" for Eliza's flower
girl, and was too good looking for Lizzie's farm girl--disadvantages that had to be overcome in
working on those roles--but if I had had a strong sense of having known Betty before I met her,
something more than having seen her figure from afar on campus, it must have been as Hester
Prynne.  From the time that light bulb went on, I have never thought of Hester except in Betty's
image . . . though, yes . . . [He smiles at her.]  I can begin to see you in the role . . . now.

        CHRISTINE
But I would feel like I was trying to re-capture Mother's identity as well as Hester Prynne's.

        JACK
It would be even more true for me if I sat down to read the novel again today--my memories of
Betty and Hester can't be separated.  The instinctive pride to challenge the whole community--and
prevail--the strength of character first to seduce a Dimmesdale and then to protect him, willing to
bear the suffering for both as a gift of love, the combination of high candor and profound mystery
in her eyes, the earth-mother, the eternal Eve, the suffering woman archetypes synthesized in the
being of Hester Prynne--and, most of all, the rare beauty, radiating pristine innocence, beauty
genuinely tempting to a man not easily tempted, the spiritual mystery that might well distract a saint
from his appointed rounds.  Do you know Mishima's story The Priest of Shiga Temple and
His Love?

        CHRISTINE
I heard you read that story once, with Shoko and the countess . . . and Mother.  When she was
there at Shangri-La.  Remember?  And talk about  the ambiguity of its ending.

        JACK
Oh, yes . . . I do remember.  Betty . . . your mother . . .  our Great Imperial Concubine . . . was
there too, wasn't she?  But you were only . . . six or seven?  [Christine smiles.]  It's an eternal
mystery, in any case.  There's Angelo's comment, in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, on
what makes Isabella so seductive.  The principle is profound.  True to the elemental nature of
temptation.  All I had to do was look at Betty and there it was.  She was Hester Prynne.

        CHRISTINE
At least she was your Hester Prynne.

        JACK
She was indeed.  I had discussed the idea of doing the play with Dr. Goff early in the fall semester,
and he'd been lukewarm on it, pointing out some of the difficulties in adaptation he had observed
in other amateur efforts of this kind, for the most part difficulties of which I was already well aware.
And, where Betty was concerned, he was beginning to think of her as his--his discovery, who was
his to use in his theatre program as he judged best--and he wasn't sure he wanted to waste her
energies on my adaptation.  But, as I continued to press for it, he finally said, "Okay, it's your
project, Jack.  I guess you've earned the right to make your own mistakes.  But, if I were you, I'd
have a nice, tidy backup project ready, and cut my losses early if this turns out to be unmanageable,
as I suspect it will."

        CHRISTINE
And Jordan was to be in it, too.

        JACK
I wanted him for Dimmesdale, of course, and that had at first amused him.  He said he'd be a better
Chillingworth, better as a devil than a fallen saint, particularly a Puritan saint, a Childe-Harold-type
Romantic, masochistically falling upon the thorns of life when he could have walked around them--
a character for whom he had little personal sympathy.  He expected to be doing Richard III in the
Shakespearean production and said he'd just have to play a little older Richard to do Chillingworth.
But he knew it was important to me--that if Richard was to be his farewell to the college stage, I
expected The Scarlet Letter to be mine--so said he'd accept the challenge of playing a character
he personally despised, that it would be good discipline as an actor.  And, after he had seen an
early draft of the script, he began to make the kind of suggestions that showed he was already
thinking of what he would be doing with the role.

        CHRISTINE
I'll bet he was good . . . I can just picture him standing on the scaffold!  Or there with Mother in
the forest.

        JACK
He was good . . . as always.  My project would be scheduled in the Experimental Theatre Series,
and--if I was going to have Jordan in a major role--late in the spring, after the Shakespeare. So
we had plenty of time.  He had tentatively accepted the role back during rehearsals for The
Rainmaker, in fact, and, when he said that he assumed that Betty would be my Hester, I had to
tell him that that was still under negotiation, might depend upon how the football season came
out--which also amused him.

        CHRISTINE
But, as he'd predicted, she didn't run off with the football player after all.

        JACK
No, she didn't.  But when I had first approached her with the idea, clear back in that two weeks
at the end of the summer, her response had been worse than Jordan's.  She had laughed out loud.
Then she got vague about it.  Yes, of course she'd like to work with me on my project, but had
only read one short story by Hawthorne, about meeting witches in the forest, and didn't know
anything about Hester Prynne except a joke her high-school English teacher had told about how
Hester had earned her A.  "She was the naughty one, wasn't she?"  I had thought that she might
show a little more enthusiasm at the time--want a look at what I had by way of a script, or at least
read the novel--but she hadn't, and I didn't press her.  I had assumed that I could get her to do the
part, and that her enthusiasm for a role that would suit her so well would come naturally.

        CHRISTINE
And she didn't actually tell you she'd do it until after the Orange Bowl game . . . until that night you . . .
fixed her hair on the steps of the scaffold . . . did she?

        JACK
That's right.  She had almost told me that she wouldn't at that cast party after The Rainmaker, a
day or two after I had told her that I wouldn't be going down to Miami, after all, but was going to
stay home and work on the script for my project.

[The lighting shifts.  Jack is still talking to Christine as he walks over to join a party in progress, and
Christine goes off to come back on with Tom in time to follow the stage direction.]

        JACK
As Betty came in, with Tom, she walked right up to me and suddenly fished a copy of The Scarlet
Letter out of her purse.

        BETTY
I just finished reading this this afternoon.

        JACK
You did?  How did you find the time, or the attention, right in the middle of doing the play?

        BETTY
I had to do something during the day to take my mind off of the pressures of the performance.
[Looking at Tom, the old veteran speaking.]  I always do, once I know I've worried enough about
what I'm going to be doing on stage.  And this book is short.

        TOM
[Smiling.]  Yeah . . . the tension before the game.  That's the worst.  I sometimes read, too.

        JACK
[Almost to himself.]  But not The Scarlet Letter, I'll bet.  [To Betty.]  Well, how did you like it?
Can't wait to get started?

        BETTY
You really think I'd be right for . . . Hester?  I don't think it'd be a very good part for me.

        JACK
I think it's a great part, that she's one of the half dozen greatest female characters in all the world's
literature, and that you'd be absolutely perfect for it.

        BETTY
Do you think so?  But I don't think I even like her.  [Looks at Tom.]  And you won't come to
Miami with me, so why should I do your play?  [Pauses for a reaction, and Tom laughs, a little
defensively, to break an embarrassing silence.]  And all of that old-fashioned language--"dost thee,"
and "beest thou"--are you going to change that?  And holding a baby, and leading a little girl
around--how could I do that?  And, if it were me, I'd point right up there at that preacher in the
very first scene and holler out, "There he is!  He's the one who did it!"  And at the end--what is
she supposed to do then?  Sit down and cry?  She ought to turn those "worthy magistrates" ears
blue for half a mile in every direction.  No . . . I don't like it.

        TOM
You're talking about The Scarlet Letter?  I read that in high school.  But is it a play?  Let me see
it.  [He takes the book from Betty.]

        BETTY
Jack's turning it into a play--while we're in Miami.

        TOM
[Sounds sincere.]  Hey . . . sorry you won't be down there, Jack.

        JACK
I'll be able to watch the game on television.

        TOM
Right . . . you'll probably see it better that way.  The way I'd rather see a game.  We watch a lot of
game films, you know,  and I remember . . .

        JACK
[Noticing Betty getting restless.]  You don't want to do it then?  I wasn't sure you would.  I might
decide to do something else anyway.  I'm having more trouble with it than I expected to, and
nobody else has much faith in it--not Dr. Gillis, not even Jordan.

        BETTY
What would Jordan do?

        JACK
Dimmesdale--the preacher--the one who did it.

        BETTY
Would he?  [Laughs.]  Well, I suppose . . . then I really would turn him in . . . and insist on child
support.   [She looks at Jack, watching his face, then at Tom, and laughs at his reaction.]

        JACK
[A little snotty.]  All right.  You're a star now.  You can begin to be choosy in the parts you take.
I'll count you out.

        BETTY
Don't give me that "I discovered you, and you owe it to me, Jack."  That won't work with me.
[She reaches over as if to take his hand, and, when he pulls back, takes Tom's hand instead.]
But I didn't say I wouldn't.  I might . . . for a friend.  If you want to do it so badly.  And if Jordan
is willing to.  But I still don't think I'd be right for the part, or feel very comfortable as . . . Hester
Prynne . . . is that how you pronounce the name?

        JACK
Yes . . . Hester Prynne.  Now can you spell it?  [Looking into her eyes.]  I've thought about
Hester Prynne for a long time, Betty, and I've thought about you doing Hester ever since I've
known you . . . maybe before . . . and yes, you are exactly right for the part.  Whenever I think
about her now . . . I see you.

        TOM
[Thumbing through the book.]  Hester Prynne . . . sure . . . this is a good book.

        JACK
Would you like to see the script I have so far?  [Tom looks up, then sees that Jack is asking Betty.]

        BETTY
No.  We can talk about it after "some of us" get back from Miami.  I read the book, Jack--isn't
that enough for now?  Actually, I want to forget about things like that while we're down there.
[She smiles at Tom and he smiles back.]  Anyway, you can't have very much of it done, if you have
to stay here and work on it that whole time.

        JACK
Okay, there's time.  But let me know as soon as you can.  It makes a difference.

        BETTY
After we get back.

        JACK
[Watching them move away, the lights going down to leave him spotlighted.]  She still held Tom's
hand, and, more or less dismissed me with a queenly wave of her other hand, steered him over
toward the refreshment table, where Jordan and Dr. Gillis were debating something until they saw
her coming, and then joined everyone else in congratulating her on how well she had done in the
play.  [As he walks back to Christine.]   Then, as Tom shook hands all around, they started talking
about the football game.  Betty didn't talk to me again until I was leaving.  Nobody did.  As you
can imagine, I wasn't in a very good mood,  and, after sulking there in the corner for a while, got
my coat and started to go.  [Lights up on Christine.]  At the door, I felt a hand on my shoulder,
and turned.  Betty asked, "Is it really true that you see me as Hester Prynne?"  The eyes were
wide and innocent, but it was obvious that she knew that I knew she was just doing it to bug me--
and enjoyed it.

        CHRISTINE
But it shows she was more interested than she pretended.

        JACK
I said, "Yes, ma'am, I do."  Then she said, "Well, you work hard on that script over this vacation--
then I'll know that you're thinking about me while I'm gone."  She laughed again, and continued
laughing as she went back toward the punch bowl.  I stomped off, muttering to myself about letting
sophomore girls have anything to drink at parties, and didn't see Betty again until I saw her on
national television at the Orange Bowl game.  I couldn't help moving her from the stands to the
scaffold in my imagination, and putting a tidy red letter A in place of the blue KU on that bosom
the cameraman kept focusing on.

        CHRISTINE
I can imagine how frustrating that must have been.

        JACK
But she was a different girl when she came back from Miami, and, after putting me through the
studied alienation of that final exam period, she herself had initiated the consummation of our
agreement that she would be my Hester on that memorable night at the foot of the scaffold in the
Experimental Theatre.

        CHRISTINE
And that was the only time?   Until you were married, that is.

        JACK
Not exactly, but we didn't move in with one another . . . any more than Hester and Dimmesdale
did.  That wasn't the way it worked for sophomore girls in the '50s, either.  She had been very
passionate, but then seemed to go into a kind of shock.  She avoided me completely for two or
three days, during which her sorority sisters were even instructed not to call her to the phone.  At
first I took that as natural caution, or, given Betty, a new experiment in female wiles.  Then, for a
week or so after I did get to talk to her, I proposed various plans for meeting, involving elaborate
secrecy and security--like sneaking her in the back door of my apartment building some night while
I created a diversion out front, or taking separate bicycle paths to meet out in the country on a
Sunday afternoon.

        CHRISTINE
[Laughing.]  And what did she say to that?

        JACK
She listened to all my proposals, but wouldn't hear of it . . . or let me get too carried away when
we were out in the car, either.  Finally, about two weeks later, she said, "No, that was a mistake,
Jack.  It's not that it's too dangerous. We shouldn't have done it at all.  You just caught me in a
weak moment."  I didn't say, "Hey, wait a minute!  I was the one who was caught in a weak
moment," but I thought it.  "But it's not just the moral problem," she said.  "It's important to the
play for us to bury our sin in the past."  And I acted as if that made sense to me.  I sure didn't tell
anybody . . . ever . . . while she was alive, though, finally, many must have guessed that something
had happened.

        CHRISTINE
Something?

        JACK
Yes . . . something.  Anyway, just about then, as the spring semester got under way, I got the
formal approval to go ahead from Dr. Gillis, whose interest had picked up a little after he had
looked at my final pre-rehearsal script.  He could see that it was more than just satisfying an
academic requirement for me, and even smiled as he pushed the script back across his desk.  "It's
ambitious, Jack . . . a blank-verse adaptation.  Shakespeare for form and Hawthorne for content,
huh?  Well, I hope you can make it work in Kansas in the middle of the 20th century.  Hard
enough to get these people to sit still for Shakespeare himself, and he was pretty good at it, you
know.  But that's what our experimental program is all about.  So good luck with it."

        CHRISTINE
And you did almost everything yourself.

        JACK
Almost everything.  A few evenings later I had a meeting with Jordan and Betty, purposely not
meeting with her alone, given the kind of stand-off we had negotiated, to read through the scenes
they had together and make sure that they were really with me before I went out to recruit the rest
of the cast.  Jordan always read well, and, wherever he had trouble with the reading of a line I
could be pretty sure that it was my fault, and marked it for revision.  And, even though Betty was
never a particularly good cold reader, and had more trouble than ever in some places, she read
other passages, particularly those closest to Hawthorne, as if those "thou's" and "thee's" were her
natural idiom.  I was watching her carefully, for any sign of her attitude toward the character, but
she was very businesslike.  She apologized where she had trouble, re-read, said she'd have to
work on this or that, but was sure that it would come.

        CHRISTINE
And it must have.

        JACK
It puzzled me--this strange submissive resistance--neither element of which I had expected, and
I was tempted to provoke a reaction that I could read more clearly.  Did she begin to feel the
character or didn't she?  But, since she had pulled back, making me apprehensive about just
where I stood with her myself at that point, I thought, "Better not.  If she's willing to take the role,
I'll take that for now."  I had confidence in the play to bring her spirit out.  Hester Prynne was in
there, I knew.

        CHRISTINE
That's probably what she was searching for too.

        JACK
Betty and Jordan were both cast in Richard III, Betty playing Anne, so I only saw them at odd
times through the whole middle of the semester, as I might drop by their rehearsals, which I didn't
do often, with Dr. Gillis directing, or see one or the other in the hall, the library, or the Student
Union.  And Betty always seemed moody.  I was over the "she's my girl after all" enthusiasm by
then, and assumed she must be coming to terms with her own emotional life, after the high
excitement of her sophomore romance with Tom.  Tom, for his part, was now out for baseball,
but coasting, and going out with other girls, including the first girl he married.  But, through all of
this, Betty continued to keep that somewhat nervous distance from me.

        CHRISTINE
She was still busy with the other play, of course.

        JACK
But not very . . . Anne really only has that one good scene early in the play.  But I didn't want to
work much with her before Jordan was available.  I had finished casting and begun rough blocking
before Richard III opened, reading lines myself, and using people from other scenes, since Jordan
and Betty wouldn't be there, for I had a lot of technical problems to work out.  Fortunately, I had
two other actors who were very good.  Dan Parker, my roommate, was playing Chillingworth.
He'd had six years of more or less professional experience--bit parts, two years doing radio and
television commercials, repertory work-- and had  come back to school for the advanced degrees
that would help him find an academic base.  The last I heard, he was director at one of the little
colleges in Missouri--Dr. Parker, presiding over the local theatre activity--exactly what he had in
mind, and I hope he's as happy a man as he deserves to be.

        CHRISTINE
I've seen some of your pictures of him . . . always with a big smile.  You must have become good
friends.

        JACK
We had lived together long enough to be comfortable with one another, and he had a pretty good
sense of what was going on between your mother and me . . . better than I did, I think.  He was a
few years older, and somewhat avuncular in disposition,  so I guess you could say he had become
my primary advisor.  But we didn't talk about Betty much . . . except in connection with the play,
which we talked about a lot.   I'd had my eye on him for Chillingworth from early on.  He had a
wonderful voice for it, in part coming out of his radio experience, but in part a natural gift--as they
say, "which comes first, the chicken or the egg?"  He was not by nature diabolic, but could sure
play the devil . . . relished it, in fact.  He played Chillingworth with such a melodramatic flair that
my main problem was keeping him from twirling his moustaches so much the audience would begin
to hiss.  He also had a small part in Richard III, Lord Stanley, as I recall, so I had to work with
him when I could, too, but, since we were living together, there were plenty of chances, and he
was helping me with most other things as well.

        CHRISTINE
People don't appreciate how much work there is doing a play.

        JACK
And I had beefed up the part of Mistress Hibbins considerably, using her for a lot of the
exposition, and, I suppose you would say, actual comic relief--which I definitely did not want from
Chillingworth--and I increased these functions in the course of the rehearsals.  Kay Adams was
playing the part, the same girl I had expected to play Eliza the previous summer, and she was able
to catch exactly the balance of crazy old lady and real witch that I wanted.  I think that Hawthorne's
own ambiguity is brought into sharpest focus in that character.  I worked out a lot of the staging
with the two of them--reading through, re-writing or re-blocking, then reading through again.

        CHRISTINE
And people are delighted to do all that extra work--which they would complain about if it were for
anything but a play.

        JACK
Yes . . . and I worked on the set with another friend, Frank Sellers, who'd already been working
with me the night Betty came to the theatre--to get a scaffold that could dominate the beginning,
middle, and end of the play without awkward perspectives, to suggest the atmosphere of a Puritan
governor's hall, and, especially, Hawthorne's forest--and with Barbara Mears, another friend, on
costumes.  She combined Hester's skills as seamstress with an interest in Colonial history, and was
one of those who love to be around theatre, but would never think of appearing on stage.  So I
had good people helping, and, on their advice, decided to go with the "Shakespearean" tradition,
sparing no pains on costumes, but just suggesting sets--finally even the scaffold--which worked fine.

        CHRISTINE
But Mother didn't have much input on any of that evidently.

        JACK
Oh, she and Jordan did come by occasionally, walked through their scenes, talked a little about
problems they saw, and left.  Jordan was making no real attempt to learn his lines yet, didn't want
them in his head with Richard III, but I knew he was a quick study once he began, so had no
concern. Betty, on the other hand, had most of her lines the first time she came, less than two
weeks after I'd given her the script at the first read-through.  Of course she didn't have so much
to remember in the Shakespeare play, and was always compulsive about memorizing lines.  On
the other hand, it was as if she were holding something back in delivering them, just talking through
her speeches, not in character--which was all right at that stage, with Jordan just reading from the
script, and everyone stopping to ask about this and that--but, again, curious.

        CHRISTINE
But that was the first Shakespeare play she was in, wasn't it?  That must have been an
overwhelming experience in itself.

        JACK
Well, perhaps.  And it had its last performance on a Saturday night.  We were to open for a
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday three weeks later, after the last classes but before final exams.
I didn't go to the cast party for Richard III, though I might have, as a guest, since I knew
everybody.  But  remembering the last cast party, I wanted to keep things as tidy as possible
between Betty and me while we were doing our play.  [He walks over to the apartment he shares
with Dan, the light following him, as he is talking, and sits down.]  I would worry about the rest of
it once that was over, but wouldn't even let myself think about it until then.  Then, Sunday morning
late I was sitting in our one comfortable chair reading a book on lighting techniques and drinking a
cup of coffee--hadn't even bothered with breakfast yet--when Dan got up.  He'd been at the
party, and was laughing about things that had happened.

        DAN
[Enters.]  You should have been there, Jack.  [Starts fixing bacon and eggs for both of them.]
But what is it with Betty?  She got into an argument with Jordan, and I thought he was going to
take on that football player right there in front of everybody--which might have left you looking
for a new Dimmesdale.  Do you think she and Jordan have something going none of us have
suspected? I always thought that Jordan . . . well . . . who knows what goes on in the forest?
I know she doesn't have Tom's ring around her neck any more, but she came with him, and left
with him, which surprised me.  I really thought, in my Chillingworth mode, that it was you and
Betty now, meant to check when you were asleep to see if you had a scarlet letter branded on
your chest.  [Gives Jack a Chillingworth look.]

        JACK
Hunh!  An argument with Jordan?  I can't imagine what could have provoked that.  She's our
mystery woman, all right . . . our Hester.  But she left with Tom?  That's interesting.  And Jordan
got mad enough to fight?  Had he been drinking?

        DAN
Some, no doubt . . . it was a party to unwind from a play in which he had been the star.  But he
wasn't drunk enough to want to fight.  He doesn't get that drunk anyway--could drink us both
under the table and never show it.  Someone said it was a remark Hazen made about Jordan's
role in your play, or his relationship to Betty, that ticked him off.  But I know Betty and Jordan
were hot at each other before Hazen got involved, so it was more likely something Jordan said to
him.  But then Betty hustled her football player out of there before any blows were thrown, and
neither of them came back, which gave everyone something else to talk about.

        JACK
Well, I sure don't want things blowing up between Betty and Jordan at this point.  I need them
both, of course.  I'm supposed to meet them at the theatre later, and I'll check it out . . . if they
come.  I plan to start serious rehearsals Tuesday.

        DAN
I look forward to it, Jack.  You know that Jordan got that scholarship for a year at the Old Vic,
don't you?  . . . or maybe you don't.  He just found out about it himself yesterday.  That's what he
was high on, if anything . . . that he was going to England to work on Shakespeare.  But why that
would make him want to fight a football player I don't know.

        JACK
[A pause.]  No, I didn't know that.  Isn't that something?  Well . . . it's not surprising.  He is the
best, and I know how badly he wants that kind of training in Shakespeare.  And, of course, the
professional credentials.  But that does change some things.  He was planning to go to New York,
you know . . .

[Walking to the center of the stage, to meet Jordan there, but as if talking to Christine on the way.]

        JACK
I didn't add, "and Betty was planning to go with him."  I couldn't stop thinking about it, but didn't
want to talk about it, not with Dan . . . or not right then.  I met with Betty and Jordan that evening,
and things were a little tense.  Jordan got there before Betty did and he was telling me about the
scholarship when Betty came in.

        JORDAN
It's a dream come true, Jack.  Exactly the kind of discipline I need.  I'll be going to England late
this summer and will be gone for close to a year.  [Christine comes in as Betty, and then he is
addressing her.]  That does mean I'll have to postpone moving to New York, for a year at least
. . . then, who knows what will come of this.   [Betty returns his look, but doesn't say a word.]

        JACK
Well, let's work through your forest scene.  Katie, who is actually a junior-high-school girl . . .
or I guess I should say her mother . . . has agreed that she can be our Pearl, but they had a conflict
for this evening, so I'll be reading her lines.  Betty and I will set it up.  Start with, "There is no Black
Man!" after Pearl asks if that's who they hear coming.

        BETTY
There is no Black Man!  Thou canst see him now.
Look . . . through the trees.  It is the minister.

        JACK
It is the minister.  Yes, now I see.
And, Mother, see his hand above his heart!
Is it because he took the Black Man's pen,
And when he wrote his name in that big book,
The Black Man set his mark in that same place?
But, Mother, why does he not wear his mark
Outside his garments . . . even as thou dost?

        BETTY
Pray go now, child!  Tease me another time.
I'll call thee when we've finished talking here.
Stray not beyond the babble of the brook.
[After a moment, Hester calls, faintly.]
Hist!  Arthur Dimmesdale!
[Louder, but hoarsely.]         Arthur Dimmesdale!  Here!

        JORDAN
Who speaks to me?  [Seeing the letter.]  It's Hester!  Hester Prynne!
And is it thou?  And art thou still in life?

        BETTY
Why even so!  As such has been my life
These seven years!  And thou?  Dost thou yet live?

        JACK
[As their reading is muted . . . to come back up with the end of the scene.]  Betty was in control,
a sort of desperate passion bursting out as she let her hair down and made her pitch for him to run
away with her.  But she was getting impatient, with Jordan just sort of stumbling through his lines.

        BETTY
[Coming back up.]  We must allow familiarity
Some time to work . . . to overcome her fear . . .
For thou art yet a stranger to the child.

        JORDAN
Yes, so it doth appear.  But, Hester . . . now . . .
What must we do?  For I am like a child,
And look to thee to lead where we must go.

        BETTY
[Coming up to him and taking his hands.]
We must make plans to spirit us away . . .
[They both then look to Jack.]

        JACK
Coming along . . . but shakey.  Shall we do it one more time?

        JORDAN
Let's let it be for now, Jack.  I know I've got to get into this scene, tune in on Betty better than I
am . . . but not tonight.  I'm no doubt just too wound up on this news, feeling that I'm finally going
to escape from this Puritan community . . . [He sweeps his hand in a half circle that includes
everything, but finishes looking at Betty again, and keeps looking at her until she just looks the
other way.] . . . to get into this scene.  I'll get together with Dan to run lines for our scenes before
Tuesday's rehearsal, and run these lines with someone tomorrow afternoon.  I'm just spinning now,
and not helping Betty any, either, I know.

[Jordan leaves Betty and Jack alone, Jack sitting in one of the seats in the second row, legs thrown
over the back of the seat in front, and Betty still on stage, sitting on the front edge of the scaffold,
adjusting the pilgrim woman's cap she is wearing.]

        JACK
Well, how about you?

        BETTY
Yeah . . . how about me?

        JACK
Do you want to go through the opening scaffold scene once before we quit?  [She doesn't
answer.]  Quit fiddling with that cap!  Or come and let me fix it.  I'll be your hairdresser again.

        BETTY
No . . . I'm not in that mood, either.  But I do have something I need to talk to you about.

        JACK
Oh?  What?  [He starts to come up to join her.]

        BETTY
No, you stay there . . . and  I'll stay here . . . on the scaffold.

        JACK
Dan tells me that you stopped a fight at the party last night.  Between Tom and Jordan.  [Laughs.]
And I wondered if the problems here this evening were all coming from Jordan's excitement . . .
or from what happened there.  What goes on?  Is it because Jordan won't be able to take you to
New York?

        BETTY
Yes.  I wanted to go to New York, and I did hope that Jordan might take me.  But that's the least
of my problems right now.

        JACK
Well, let's think about summer after the play.  You're going to be great as Hester Prynne--just as I
knew you would.  If you do that for me, I might take you to New York.

        BETTY
More Hester than you know, Jack . . . I'm pregnant.  [Jack jumps, making Betty laugh, nervously.]

        JACK
[Standing looking up at her by then.]  Are you sure?

        BETTY
I've known it for a couple of weeks . . . and I'm pretty sure that Roger Prynne is not the father.

        JACK
Well . . . don't you think we should get married?

        BETTY
[The tone of her laughter changing, as he comes up on stage to join her.]  You're such a Puritan,
Jack . . . one of those godly magistrates yourself.  But I should marry somebody, I suppose.
[Looking into his eyes.]  And why not you?  [She puts out a hand, to keep him quiet, which he
then takes in his.]  Yes, I wanted to go to New York . . . wanted to be a professional actress.
I didn't want to get pregnant.

        JACK
Well, we could still go to New York, Betty . . . I . . .

        BETTY
And wait for the baby.  It would be ridiculous.  No, it would be better to go to . . . where did you
say they had offered you a job? . . . to Nebraska . . . to somewhere where they still believe in
babies, and things like that . . . and just hide!

[Jack moves forward on the stage, taking the light with him.]

        JACK
I thought that she might cry, but she didn't, just stood there quietly holding my hand, as if totally
submitting herself to an uncontrollable fate.  I was willing to run off anywhere with her after she
had let her hair down that way--after she had offered to be my woman--given herself to me--
however Puritan she thought I was . . . and with whatever reservations.

        CHRISTINE
[Laughs.]  Even run off to Nebraska?

        JACK
Don't laugh.  You were born there . . . so you're a Nebraskan.

        CHRISTINE
And proud of it . . . though I don't know much about the state.

        JACK
And the play went perfectly.  Maybe that was what it needed, the hidden love affair--which we at
least tried to keep hidden.  Betty and I suddenly seemed to be on the same wave length, tuned to
each other, both feeling a little guilty, but sublimating it into our work on the play.  Chillingworth
was lurking around the edges with his dark secrets, reading the clues we were leaving him,
Mistress Hibbins had an appropriate "I know more than I'm telling about what goes on around
here on these dark nights" posture, and, what baffled me most, Jordan's reaction was just right,
too.  Sometimes it was as if he knew about us, as he watched me work with Betty and was sharp
enough to read the echoes, but sometimes it was as if he had his own secret, and that it, too, had
something to do with Betty.

        CHRISTINE
As if he were the father?

        JACK
Well . . . I could believe him when he put his hand over his heart, as he looked at her on the
scaffold.  And Betty dominated him in the scenes they shared in the play, as much as he'd
dominated her in Pygmalion, out of a confidence and pride, so he followed her lead--which was
right for the play, of course.

        CHRISTINE
Hester is a strong woman.

        JACK
Yes, but in spite of this, Jordan still made the play as a whole, as it is structurally, Dimmesdale's
action.  When he mounted the scaffold, he had the audience.  Of course I attributed part of this to
the fact that Jordan Simms was Jordan Simms.  Within a year he had done a remarkable job with
Henry Higgins, Starbuck, Richard the Third, and now Arthur Dimmesdale.  I can't imagine that
anyone has ever done more on a college stage in a year.  And Dimmesdale was, after all, a
Byronic poseur, a natural for an actor with a flair.  But I was still catching some echoes from him,
and from Betty, that confused me.  Then, I thought, "that, too, is coming from the play . . . and the
play's the thing . . ."

        CHRISTINE
That's true, isn't it?  A good play brings out all these emotions . . . which is one reason it's so
exciting to be in one.

        JACK
And I particularly enjoyed working with Betty this way, whatever the problems might be.  I
thought we had found the ideal relationship.  I couldn't compete with Jordan as an actor, could
never compete with the charisma of a Tom Hazen, but there she was, doing my play (or
Hawthorne's play as I'd read it), under my direction.  I had written the play with her in mind as
Hester ever since I'd gone back to work on it that fall, doing much of the work when I'd thought
she might be going off with Tom.  But that didn't matter--she was still my Hester.  Even the fact
that we could now be lovers was just an extra dividend.

        CHRISTINE
That's a nice way to put it . . . an extra dividend.

        JACK
Still, the primary relationship was playwright-actress. Perhaps I couldn't be her leading man, nor,
though I was getting reasonably competent as a director, was it as her director that the relationship
was best defined, in my mind--but as her playwright, providing her with the vehicle for her talent,
each of us comfortable in the standard male/female illusion that ours was the more important role.
That was very satisfying.

        CHRISTINE
And the relationship you had again later . . . as you worked on filming the countess's life.  Nice to
see it as a metaphor.

        JACK
But mixing Betty's ambiguity with Hawthorne's was tricky.  I had half a dozen plays in one draft or
another, but this one was my first real maximum effort, the first full-length play I had done to be
staged.  I was tuned to Hawthorne, I believe--I still like to think of myself as that one heart and
mind in perfect tune with his own that he saw himself as writing for--and I wanted to capture his
tragic vision in the higher medium of verse drama.  Then I wanted its power for Betty--then to
give me some kind of power over Betty--and then, well a strange thing happened.

        CHRISTINE
What?

        JACK
It got out of my hands completely.  Whether it was Betty, or Hawthorne . . . or Hester Prynne
asserting her spirit over all of us across the years . . . I began to just sit back and watch it happen.
I thought I knew Hester when I began, but by the time I finally saw Betty as Hester on stage, in the
last rehearsals and all three nights of the performance, she was too complicated for one man to
know.  I'd be in bed with Betty at night, and imagine her as Hester Prynne standing on the scaffold,
or letting down her hair in the forest, and think, "This is that woman.  And I'm holding her in my
arms."  Betty did the play off-Broadway, ten years later . . . and so many other great roles . . .
was perfect as the countess . . . but I don't think she ever surpassed the Hester Prynne she did for
me, as a college sophomore."

        CHRISTINE
And I've heard you say that Jordan's Higgins was his best?  You must have been quite a director.

        JACK
Well . . . I may be biased.  But the way she dominated Jordan when they were together on stage
in this play was . . . the ultimate seduction!  Of course my own ecstatic state at the time may well
have something to do with my reaction as a critic, too . . . and now with my memories.  But it was
. . . special.

        CHRISTINE
And you were in love.

        JACK
Yes . . . I was.  The Sunday after our last performance I took Betty for a long drive.  Dr. Gillis
had complimented me on the way I had handled everything, which meant that my M.A. was
assured, and that I could then have the job at Wellington College--with its brand-new theatre--
if I wanted it.

        CHRISTINE
And was that what you wanted?

        JACK
I was more concerned about what Betty wanted.  She had two more years to go for her degree,
and Dr. Gillis might well be talked into doing Antigone or Hedda Gabler if she stayed . . . but then
there was the baby.  I finally pulled into one of those roadside parks, and opened with the question,
"Well, Hester, now what?"  She said, "I guess we get married and go to Nebraska, Jack."  And it
seemed just that simple.  Betty and I were married two days after the graduation ceremonies at
which Jordan Simms and Tom Hazen both received B.A.s and I got my masters degree.  It may
have been obvious to some by that time that she was pregnant, but no one said anything . . . at
least not to me.  Jordan and Tom were both there, and I couldn't resist wondering, as Tom kissed
the bride, and Jordan smiled, if either of them might be the father of our little Pearl--but I knew
that I might be.  And I also knew that I was willing to take Betty in any case.  Standing there next
to her I felt that I had won the prize, and was not yet much concerned about the child.

        CHRISTINE
Well, thank you . . . for this candid appraisal.

        JACK
Sorry . . . I'm just telling it like it was.  Jordan was leaving the next morning for a few days in New
York, so we were saying goodby to him as well, and, as we talked briefly about his plans, Betty's
voice shook a little.  He didn't have to be in England until late summer and was telling us about
plans with a friend on scheduling a sort of cross-country tour doing a program of short
Shakespeare pieces.  He had been planning a one-man show, since he knew enough Shakespeare
to do an hour, and that would give him total flexibility.

        CHRISTINE
But then you joined him in that tour.

        JACK
Yes, on sudden impulse, as it seemed, he was suggesting that we go with him--that he and Betty
could do their courtship scene from Richard III, counterpoint two or three sonnets apiece, and
whatever else would make a program.  I told them I had an abridged version of Othello that I'd
started as a class project, that would play in about half an hour, and Jordan said, "Well, let's look
at it, Jack.  But I'd want to do Iago.  You'd have to do Othello--in blackface--which would at
least give you a chance to strangle your wife every evening . . . for being unfaithful."  I just looked
at Betty, but none of us even smiled.  She and I had talked a little about summer theatre, but
nothing seemed available that would be as good as the things we'd done in the last year, so this
was the best offer we'd had--and with Jordan--so we took it.  It turned out to be a fiasco, but
was also memorable . . . a genuine adventure.

        CHRISTINE
[Laughs.]  I've heard Mother tell her Oklahoma City story . . . more than once.

        JACK
And I'm sure it got better every time.  We canceled the western half of the tour, and Jordan went
to spend the time he had left before going to England in Estes Park with his mother again--as she
had asked him to.  We had sent everything we owned to Nebraska, and followed it a little earlier
than expected.  But by the end of summer I was really looking forward to a year at Wellington
College, where Betty could have the baby and I could write, and get some good, solid journeyman
directing experience.  Then we'd have time to make plans and appraise opportunities.   So it was
off to Nebraska for the newlyweds.  And that's where you were born.

        CHRISTINE
Yes . . . that's where I was born.