Episode One: “To Business”
The curtain opens on an office to the sounds of office equipment. Typewriters clacking, random numbers being called out as they are added up on old-fashioned adding machine, phones ringing, papers shuffling, filing cabinet doors being slid open and closed. Everything is abuzz, everything is mechanical; even the conversations going on between the filing clerk and telephone girl and stenographer and adding clerk. Into this scene enters a young woman who is late to work and not for the first time. For this reason, the other office workers descend upon her with criticism and questions which produce an important piece of information: office supervisor George Jones is quite smitten with her to the point of considering marriage. George enters the office and chats with the young woman for a few minutes before exiting. The episode ends with a monologue from the young woman offering a stream-of-consciousness glimpse inside her head. She plays out the wedding vows, taking the role of not just the bride, but the minister before launching into a disjointed, but cohesive and coherent overview of what is expected of young women of her period: marriage, sex and no life outside the home.
Episode Two: “At Home”
The next episode takes place in a kitchen in the apartment shares with her mother. As they eat dinner, the young woman tries to keep the conversation focused on her possible marriage to George, but the mother is distracted by garbage and wondering if her daughter is going to eat her potato. Finally getting her mother on the same track, the topic turns to marriage and the mother asks when these nuptials are going to take place. At this point, the young woman announces that she is not going to marry George because she is not love with him. The mother responds that love doesn’t pay the bills. Suddenly, the young woman asks her mother to tell her whether that feeling of a husband making your skin crawl ever leaves; does a wife just get used to being married without love. The mother’s incessant reply to much of what her daughter says is “You’re crazy.” As the young woman starts washing dishes, her mother asks whether she’s going to accept the proposal or not. Her answer is a definite maybe. Her calls her the craziest.
Episode Three: “Honeymoon”
A hotel bedroom with a window overlooking a dancing casino sets the stage for the revealing the young woman’s decision. She and George have married and are on their honeymoon. They have just arrived as a bellhop brings in their luggage. The most striking aspect of this scene is its similarity to the previous episode. Like her mother, her husband is distracted while she tries to talk to him. He pulls her onto his lap and tries to get a little fresh before asking if he’s already told her a dirty joke about the pullman porter and the tart. He keeps trying to turn the subject to what’s under her dress, asks if she’s afraid of him and complains when she tries to go into another room to undress. As she disappears into the bathroom, he begins speaking about his plans to enjoy life from this point forward and muses about graveling to Europe next year. Finally, she reappears from out of the bathroom wearing a straight white nightgown. As George crosses to her, he realizes she is crying. The young cries out that she wants her mother—she wants somebody. The husband reminds her that she has him and there is nothing to cry about.
Episode Four: “Maternal”
The scene is a room in a hospital. Through an open window drifts the mechanical background noise of riveting. The young woman has just given birth to a girl. A nurse asks if she’s happy about that because most men want sons and most women want daughters. She gestures toward the window to indicate the noise is bothersome, but the nurse says nothing can be done. George enters with a bouquet of flowers. He speaks in trite homilies cautioning her to brace up, pull herself together and take life by the horns. At which point she begins choking and pointing to the door. The nurse rushes George out of the room and tries to get her interested in the baby, but she is in a black state of depression. When the doctor instructs the nurse to bring the baby to her, the young woman finally speaks for the first time: “No!” She is insistent upon not wanting to see her baby. Left alone in the room, she launches into another repetitive monologue heavy on the themes of wanting to be left alone and the burden of heavy weight.
Episode Five: “Prohibited”
An electric piano provides the background soundtrack to the interior of a bar. An illegal Prohibition-era speakeasy, to be precise. The scene is a triptych portrait of three different conversations taking place at three different tables. At table one, a man and woman are discussing the pros and cons of undergoing an abortion. Table two is the portrait of an older homosexual man trying to seduce a younger man. The third table is occupied by two men growing itchy over the late arrival of two women expected to show up. The women in question turn out to be George’s wife and the telephone girl from the office scene earlier. She introduces the young woman to her date for the evening: Richard Roe. Soon enough, the telephone girl takes off with her date, leaving the young woman alone with Roe. It is in this scene that the name of the young woman is finally revealed: Helen. Before leaving, the telephone girl’s date suggests Roe tell Helen all about how he killed a some people in Mexico. Roe’s story is about being captured by bandits and escaping by getting them drunk before beating them to death with a bottle stuffed with rocks. Rather than being repulsed or frightened by the story, Helen is seduced by his aura of danger. Meanwhile at table one, the man has pretty much succeeded in convincing the women to go through with the abortion. At table two, the older man lands the deal with the promise of poetry by Verlaine back at his room. Pretty much the same deal takes place at table three, but without the promise of a first edition as enticement.
Episode Six: “Intimate”
The electric piano has been replaced by a hand organ and footsteps. The stage is so dark, however, that it is almost impossible to determine the circumstances of the setting. It turns out to be Roe’s apartment. Helen is now identified in the script simply as Woman rather than Young Woman. She and Roe engage in meaningless small talk and sing along to the music being played on the hand organ. She confesses that the reason she went back to his room with him was because he told her she looked like angel. He replies that all—white—women look like angels to him. She wants them to stay together and he replies she’d better learn Spanish because he’s going back down to Mexico. She puts on a hat and says goodbye. After an embrace and a kiss, she asks if she can have lily that is blooming in a bowl of water. She takes the flower and leaves.
Episode Seven: “Domestic”
Helen is back to being the Young Woman again as she and George are seated at opposite ends of a divan, reading the newspaper. They speak the headlines in their respective sections out loud and are interrupted by the phone. George learns that the “property is mine” and becomes quite excitable. Their conversation with each other, however, is cold and emotionless as they discuss whether she is a good mother while he is completely occupied by the obsessive need for money. The scene grows increasingly more abstract and stranger as she references murder and suicide. The husband mentions that his paper contains a story about another revolution below the Rio Grande which prompts her to ask if there any prisoners and did anyone get hurt, but answers that everyone got free. The hand organ music from the previous scene begins to play and the sound of The Voice of Her Lover begins discussing her notorious escape from the bandits using an empty bottle filled with stones.
Episode Eight: “The Law”
The scene is courtroom. All rise as the judge enters. George has been murdered and Helen is the prime suspect. With Helen on the stand, the backstory which has led to this moment is recalled. Her story is that she and George were in bed when an unidentified intruder entered and struck George over the head with an empty bottle he’d filled with stones. The prosecutor then proceeds to enter a list of evidence which has been of significance in the previous scenes: rubber dishwashing gloves, a nightgown and—most damning—a bowl which previously contained water, a lily and some stones. She finally breaks down and confesses to murdering George.
Episode Nine: “A Machine”
Prison bars face the audience as the sound of a black spiritual being sung and airplane flying high overhead commingle. A priest is in the midst of a prayer as soon Helen is led to a barber to have her hair cut before the execution. She is terrified and physically tries to stop the shearing from taking place, but barber assertively tells her she will submit. She asks the priest questions about why she was born and will be peace come after the execution. The shadow of the plan falls across the stage as the hum of its engine grows louder. Helen refuses to see her mother, calling her a stranger. She confesses that the only time in her life she ever felt completely free was during those moments in which she was actually murdering George. Reporters describe the scene of execution with one noting that she pulled her hair out from under the cap just before the switch was thrown.
