31 Plays in 31 Days, #19 - "Time and Strife"

[breakinglight11]

Garbage. Awkward, unspecific garbage that I've been banging at for like three days and I still hate it. It follows immediately after Day #16 - "Disguise", and it suffers from the same issue I had with that one of not knowing how to convey the important backstory the audience needs to know, without drowning them in details or making the characters say things they'd never naturalistically say. Thinking now, I have struggled with the scene where "the current state of things" is articulated in parts III and IV as well— that ended up being a slog to write that I left until almost last both previous times as well.

Day #19 - "Time and Strife"
From Mrs. Frost
By Phoebe Roberts

VICTORIA HAWKING, lady's society avenger, mid forties
MARY STONE, her housemaid and assistant, mid twenties
NATHANIEL HAWKING, her nephew and assistant, early thirties

London, England, 1886
~~~

(Enter MRS. HAWKING. MARY and NATHANIEL attempt to act natural.)

MRS. HAWKING:

Oh. It’s you.

NATHANIEL:

Always happy to see you, too, Auntie.

MRS. HAWKING:

What do you want? And— why ever are you dressed like that? Have you come to sweep the chimneys?

NATHANIEL:

As a matter of fact, I've been working at my disguises. I thought I'd come by to see what you thought. Howzat?

MRS. HAWKING:

Ugh. I imagine it's more effective when you're not asking the cricket umpire for a ruling.

NATHANIEL:

Be kind to me. I don’t often wear undershirts in public.

(Pause.)

NATHANIEL:

I also wanted to look in and see how you are.

MRS. HAWKING:

Busy. As always.

NATHANIEL:

Of course. But… with what, exactly?

MRS. HAWKING:

I beg your pardon?

NATHANIEL:

Well… you have turned down a number of cases lately.

MRS. HAWKING:

I’ve been otherwise engaged.

MARY:

Hunting Mrs. Frost.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING:

What of it?

MARY:

We only wondered… how long you meant for this to go on. Before you return to your work.

MRS. HAWKING:

I am working.

(She uncovers her board, revealing all the notes, newspaper clippings, and red string pinned upon it, around a central portrait of MRS. FROST.)

NATHANIEL:

Oh, goodness.

MRS. HAWKING:

See here, I have been tracing the operations of her enterprises— observing their patterns, searching for points of weakness. She pervades the city like a cancer, but with her hands in so many endeavors, there many possible points of failure. Any mistake she makes is an opportunity we can exploit. And now… now I finally think I’ve found one.

MARY:

What is it?

MRS. HAWKING:

A trafficking operation… smuggling refugees from war-torn corners of the colonies into London, promising work but selling them into practical slavery. They have regular routes and passages they bring the desperate souls through… except one group of them, one group has gone missing.

MARY:

Could they have changed their patterns?

MRS. HAWKING:

No. No. Twenty or thirty people, disappeared without a trace— her agents are losing their minds. Something has disrupted their operation, and that disruption means a way in.

NATHANIEL:

What do you plan to do?

MRS. HAWKING:

I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out.

NATHANIEL:

So you mean to go on until you’ve destroyed it.

MRS. HAWKING:

I mean to go on until I’ve destroyed her.

(Pause.)

MARY:

Are you sure this is the right course, madam?

MRS. HAWKING:

I beg your pardon? She is the most dangerous person in the city— an empire does not crumble in a day—

MARY:

No, it happens with time. And strife.

(Pause.)

MARY:

We know how hard it was for you, madam.

MRS. HAWKING:

How hard it was?

MARY:

You grew up with that woman. She all but raised you. To learn that she’s your enemy…

(Pause.)

MARY:

And it cannot be easy to have lost to her.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING:

All the more reason. All the more reason, to give this everything I have.

MARY:

But it’s begun to consume you—!

MRS. HAWKING:

Because that’s what it takes!

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING:

Now. Are you finished? You sound finished.

(Pause.)

MRS. HAWKING:

Now I’ll be on my way. I have an investigation to make.

NATHANIEL:

At least let us go with you.

MRS. HAWKING:

No, the two of you have done enough today.

NATHANIEL:

You know we only ever want to help you—

MRS. HAWKING:

Oh, for God’s sake, go else where for your praise and petting, Nathaniel! I haven’t the time for it.

(MRS. HAWKING exits.)