31 Plays in 31 Days, #14 - “Dearest Mary, My Dear Nathaniel”

Ugh, really not happy with this one. It’s meant to be the opening scene of Hawking part 7, which means it needs to grab the viewer, but it’s really not up to snuff. I found as I was struggling to draft this, I wasn’t as sure what I wanted to do with it as I thought. It’s Mary and Nathaniel communicating through letters between New York and London, a dramatic device I’ve always wanted to include. (I got talked out of having Justin and Nathaniel use it to interact in Gentlemen Never Tell.)

It’s a perfect opportunity to establish the status quo of the story as they update each other on their lives. And to show how much they miss each other, and how they’re still close even after two years apart. But I feel like it should be doing more… though drafting it now, I’m not sure what. I kind of just went with the idea that Mary and Nathaniel could narrate a cool fight— a way to get an element of excitement and spectacle in the show, way up top to grab interest right away. But it feels like it should be doing more to shape the ideas, and I’m not sure in what. Should it be a framing device for the entire show, as if all the events are from letters they’re writing to each other? Should it be that they go from trying to be as positive as possible in their opening letters, while willing to admit things are harder than that in their closing ones? Is there some other important change I can use it to convey? I guess I need to figure out how Mary and Nathaniel would communicate their takeaways from their experiences in this installment overall, and try to make that felt.

Definitely not there yet.


Photo by Jacob LaRocca

( Day #14 - Dearest Mary, My Dear Nathaniel )