31 Plays in 31 Days, #15 - “No Regrets”

A scene that I think would take place between Hawking parts 6 and 7. Something I want Mary to be dealing with is how she’s going to run her own life now that it’s hers to run, and I think for a while at least she decides she is completely DONE with superheroics. She’s going to be a NORMAL person with a NORMAL life, because she doesn’t want to end up a bitter and angry like Mrs. Hawking who lashes out at the people around her. But she will come to realize she misses that meaningful work, and ask herself if there’s a way to do it without repeating her old mistress’s mistakes. I thought a good way to set that in motion would be if she reencounters an old familiar face— Madam Malaika Shah. After all, Madam Malaika was the person who in part V: Mrs. Frost posed to her the current big question of her life— “You would be Mary Stone. And who is that?”



Malaika also predicted that she wouldn’t be able to stay with Mrs. Hawking without being destroyed, but by the end of the play in which she made that prediction, Malaika herself had resolved to try and be a little less cynical and reach out to others in hopes that she could make positive, non-ruinous connections. I think if she reencountered Mary in New York, where Mary and Arthur moved to after their wedding in December of 1889, it could be powerful to see Malaika dealing with the grim reality that she was right about Mrs. Hawking and Mary, and we can see her fears for what that means for her own attempts to reach out. And Mary, in asserting the value of her experiences even if they had to end badly, can start wondering if there’s a way to bring back the positive parts of her old life without the negative parts.

This is banged out too quickly and probably feels rushed. But I really like the idea.

( Day #15 - No Regrets )