31 Plays in 31 Days, #20 - "Learning the Hard Way"

[breakinglight11]

This scene follows immediately after Day #19 - "Rebellious Young Girls" as Elizabeth comes in. Though the true delineation of the "scene pieces" as I call them are when a new character enters or exits and changes the dynamic of what's going on, each one encapsulates a tiny arc that is begun and concluded with that change. I think every scene ought to have an arc, and the scene pieces within it a smaller one within that, which add up to the overall arc of the scene. I'll admit, my scene transitions are determined by practical means— I switch them only when the time of the interaction or the location changes —but it maintains a sense of domino-like progress throughout the entire play.

Day #20 - "Learning the Hard Way"
From Gilded Cages
By Phoebe Roberts

Bengal, India, 1859

VICTORIA STANTON, daughter of the lieutenant territorial governor
PRIYANKA MALIK, a young rebel who works in the governor's house
ELIZABETH DANVERS, companion to Victoria
~~~

(Enter ELIZABETH.)

ELIZABETH:

Good afternoon, girls. You may be interested to know that Captain Hawking is looking for you.

VICTORIA:

Drat, I said I’d take him riding on the mangrove. I’d forgotten.

ELIZABETH:

You’ve grown quite thick with the captain these last few months, haven’t you?

VICTORIA:

He’s all right. But we’re busy here, I’ll find him when we’re finished.

ELIZABETH:

Busy? What are you up to?

VICTORIA:

We’re plotting to raid the granaries and give it all to Priyanka’s village.

PRIYANKA:

Miss Stanton!

VICTORIA:

Oh, she won’t tell anyone. Rather… she can help. She’s always coming up with plots and things. Elizabeth, tell us how it can be done.

ELIZABETH:

It’s simple. It can’t be.

VICTORIA:

Oh, come now!

ELIZABETH:

You can’t! Not with the resources you have and the circumstances as they are.

VICTORIA:

Bollocks! You can work out anything, Elizabeth! People are starving!

ELIZABETH:

I suppose you could go to the mission and ask if they would feed the village as an act of charity. You ought to send the Captain. He’ll do it for you, and they’ll do it for a war hero.

VICTORIA:

Charity!?

ELIZABETH:

Do you want to get the village fed? Or pull off a cracking scheme?

PRIYANKA:

Beg pardon, but my neighbors are in dire straits, miss. I don’t think they can count only on pity.

ELIZABETH:

Well, it’s your best chance.

VICTORIA:

But that’s not good enough! It will only do to raid the silo. You must have some idea how to do it. You always do.

ELIZABETH:

(Sighing) Perhaps if you… forged orders to deliver the stores to the edge of the manor, and waited for a guard change to have Priyanka’s people carry it off… you might get away with it before anyone looked into where the orders came from.

VICTORIA:

Ha! I knew it!

PRIYANKA:

Miss, could it really be done?

ELIZABETH:

No. It won’t work. You’d need an army of help that can’t be seen, and eventually they’d go digging into the false orders. They’d catch you, or else unravel it all in time.

VICTORIA:

Not if we do it right!

ELIZABETH:

You won’t. They’ll catch you. And when they do, you’ll be in a world of trouble. Both of you.

VICTORIA:

I am not frightened.

ELIZABETH:

Perhaps you’re not. But think of it, Priyanka. What will become of you if you do?

PRIYANKA:

Miss… we need this. What will become of me if I don’t?

VICTORIA:

Don’t listen to her, Priyanka. We’ll show her.

ELIZABETH:

(Sighing) Learning the hard way. Fancy that.

(ELIZABETH exits.)