breakinglight11 | 31 Plays in 31 Days 2025, #14

A bit I hope to incorporate into Mrs. Hawking part 9. Something I’d like to explore is how hard it is to expand into a functional larger team. Mary is now stepping into the leadership position, but it’s a huge challenge and burden, and she’s got to figure out how to handle it. And I like the idea that, as much as she’s come into her own and doesn’t need a mentor anymore, there are still some things Mrs. Hawking can do to help and support her in this step of her growth.

As a side note, I wasn’t expecting to write this scene; it just kind of came to me. It’s a pleasant bonus of doing 31P31D when I come up with something I wouldn’t have come up with unless I pushed myself to just get something written.

Photo by Kathy Bedard

Day #14 - “Responsible”
From Mrs Hawking part 9
By Phoebe Roberts

London, 1893

VICTORIA HAWKING, lady’s champion of London, early fifties
MARY SWANN, society avenger, early thirties
~~~

(MRS. HAWKING enters to MARY.)

MRS. HAWKING: Well, Mary? What shall we do?

MARY: I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.

MRS. HAWKING: That isn’t an answer.

MARY: But I don’t! If we don’t stop this man, generations of lives could be ruined! We must do something, but what? What stops something so enormous? And the girls aren’t ready— we need the manpower, but if I send them out, they could be caught, or hurt, or worse.

MRS. HAWKING: They are waiting on your word. We are all waiting on your word.

MARY: But I don’t have the answer! And I can’t afford to make a mistake!

MRS. HAWKING: You cannot allow that to stop you. You must decide!

MARY: How can I? When so much could be lost if I’m wrong?

MRS. HAWKING: Because that is the job!

(Pause.)

MARY: The job? What job, commander of this little army?

MRS. HAWKING: Not only that. This work— this… standing up for justice, taking on the demons of other people’s misery. It means all those burdens become yours— their pain, their struggle, the responsibility to act, and all the consequence that comes of it. And that means both the credit and the blame. We give hope, and hope is not certainty. And where there can be no certainty, there must be someone brave enough to take the risk. Brave enough to bear the weight of having failed.

MARY: And… what if I do fail? What then?

MRS. HAWKING: Then… you shall be responsible. And you shall do the best that you can from there.

MARY: Yes. The best that I can, with my life as it is… that’s all that I can do.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING: Now, madam. Your warriors wait upon your word.