The Song of Maria Bentedos

"A composer's studio. . . The rising young composer, GERALD MARVIN, is tearing up and down his room in an awful state. . . ."

A temperamental young composer thinks he will "go mad" if he can't identify the source of a melody running through his head. He wants to use it in the finale of a sonata he is composing--but, he says, only if it is his own. His long suffering wife tries to help. Enter a Spanish peddler and seamstress who, while working on a button, quietly begins to sing a song that changes everything.

PROGRAM NOTE: This playlet, written in 1918, was published for the first time by Playscripts, Inc. in 2009. Here, Wilder revisits the question he explored in Centaurs, also written in 1918: What are the sources-and the "ownership"--of artistic themes and ideas?