31 Plays in 31 Days 2025, #1 - “The Suit”

[breakinglight11]

Here we go again! 31 Plays in 31 Days 2025, the fourteenth year of my taking on the challenge of writing a page of drama every day for the month of August.

This year crept up on me a little bit less than it often does, so I took some time to think about what I was going to write over the course of the last few weeks. I usually do best when I have a specific project to draft, which for me often works best if I have a plan, an outline, that I’ve already thought over. I’ve been more focused on production than writing new stuff lately, so I unfortunately don’t have much worked out yet, but I definitely do have projects that I’d like to use this time for. So, perhaps if I can be very diligent, I can do both some planning and some drafting over the course of the month, and make some real progress.

One thing that will need a lot of doing is Mrs. Hawking part 9. I really know very little about it at this point, except that it is to be the grand finale of the mainline Mrs. Hawking series, so it has to be BIG. Big in scope, big in cast, big in emotions, big in action, big in everything. So I’ve really got to make it count.

So, to kick things off, here’s a bit of tiny noodling of something small about it, as I work on figuring out all that stuff that’s big.


Photo by Kathy Bedard

Day #1 - “The Suit”
From Mrs Hawking part 9
By Phoebe Roberts

London, 1893

VICTORIA HAWKING, lady’s champion of London, early fifties
JOANNA KERRY, her maid and new apprentice, early twenties
~~~

(JOANNA enters the study where MRS. HAWKING waits, carrying in one of her old stealth suits.)

JOANNA: I’ve done the mending you asked for, Madam.

MRS. HAWKING: Thank you, Joanna.

JOANNA: Wasn’t easy, let me tell you. Could stitch the shirt back together, but had to darn it in four places, and there wasn’t enough of the vest left to patch. Had to recut the plackets and both of the sides. What is all this, anyway?

MRS. HAWKING: My suit. What I wore in the field, when I used to do that sort of work myself.

JOANNA: It was in a right state. Shredded, and stained though somebody scrubbed it within an inch of its life.

MRS. HAWKING: Hmm. I did what I could to get the blood out of it. But I suppose they did have to cut it off of me when last I wore it.

JOANNA: Christ’s sake, madam, what happened to you?

MRS. HAWKING: When I had resolved to hunt down the Ripper, and he lay in wait for me a gun.

(Pause.)

JOANNA: The Ripper? You can’t mean— Jack the Ripper?

MRS. HAWKING: The very same.

JOANNA: That’s right— you went after him. What the blazes happened?

MRS. HAWKING: Men such as him do not stop until they are stopped.

JOANNA: Sweet Jesus. The holes in the stomach, then…

MRS. HAWKING: From the bullet. The very one I carry now.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING: That wasn’t the last time, but… I haven’t worn them in years. Not since I had to accept my reduced capacity. But I was always rather proud of it. Took me years to develop, as my work took shape, and I understood what best I needed to do it. I would order the pieces from seamstresses, and then make my own modifications. The trousers were jodhpurs that I darned in the knees like ballet slippers. The corset, of the type favored by pit-brow women for ease of movement at work. The waistcoat, quilted to turn away the blows of fists and knives. And of course the hood, that took me from a mere woman to… a wisp of smoke, a shadow in the darkness, a phantom in the night. There were times when men would see me in it, and believe I was a nightmare. There were times when that sight alone would make them run in fear.

JOANNA: The way they talk about you, Madam… could you really do all the things they say?

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING: Miss Kerry… once I was exquisite.

(Pause.)

JOANNA: If you don’t wear the suits no more, Madam, what do you need it for now?

MRS. HAWKING: At ease, Miss Kerry. I only wanted to remember a little. What I used to be.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING: That will be all, Miss Kerry.