The Man Who Thought For Himself

The play is set in a Police State, and is the trial of a prisoner charged with the crime of "thinking for himself", an offence punishable by death, and for which the prisoner is virtually condemned before being heard. He declares, however, that his state of mind is induced by what he can only describe as the influence of an Imp. This Imp invades the Court and ultimately infects all present with the same propensity. Judge and officials depart in terror, but return, completely at the mercy of this terrible compulsion to thnk for themselves. Powerless now to perform their functions according to the law of the State, they are doomed. They can only strive to do so, abortively, in dumb pantomine.