31 Plays in 31 Days, #21 - "The Force of Her"

[breakinglight11]

This is a very important scene from Mrs. Frost. When the new team is struggling to work together, Malaika takes note of Mary's struggle and offers her a warning based on her experience. In turn, Mary asks her if Malaika really has no choice but to walk the path alone. It was very tough to write, and I think it's going to need a lot of editing to get exactly right. It's also a moment that helped me make the decision that, when I wrote the full pilot for the television version I'd like to have produced some day, to write Mary as an ethnically Indian girl. I feel like this moment would work even more strongly as an elder female superhero of color speaking to an up-and-coming young female superhero of color.

Day #21 - "The Force of Her"
From Mrs. Frost
By Phoebe Roberts

MISS MARY STONE, Mrs. Hawking's housemaid and assistant, mid twenties
MADAM MALAIKA SHAH, colonial avenger, late forties

London, England, 1886
~~~

(MRS. HAWKING and CLARA, having screamed themselves out, stomp off to their separate corners. MARY turns to MADAM MALAIKA.)

MARY:

I’m sorry, madam.

MADAM MALAIKA:

You did not make her what she is.

MARY:

She’s… not been well. Not since… well, this business began with Mrs. Frost.

MADAM MALAIKA:

It goes much farther back than that, I imagine.

MARY:

You know, she thinks the world of you. Even after all that’s happened, I have never seen her care so much for… anyone, as she does for you.

MADAM MALAIKA:

History is a rope. It ties us together, and it holds us down.

(Pause.)

MADAM MALAIKA:

You’re her apprentice, are you not? Is this the path you intend to walk?

MARY:

Yes, madam.

MADAM MALAIKA:

Then I think you ought to know what awaits you. If you pursue this work.

MARY:

What do you mean?

MADAM MALAIKA:

It destroys us all, in the end. Her anger, her hardness? It may have brought to her to this life. But it only grows worse, the more battles you fight. The greater the lengths it asks you to go.

MARY:

I know what happened between you. But she was a careless girl when you knew her; there has been a lifetime since then. She’s… she’s a hero. She’s my hero.

MADAM MALAIKA:

I remember what it was to be caught up in the force of her. So that you believed that there is nothing she could not do.

MARY:

Before I met her, I was no one. A… maid girl alone in the world, never so much as noticed except to stoke the fires or clear the trays. And then I met Madam, and she brought me into her service… and then my life began. I owe her everything.

MADAM MALAIKA:

Perhaps so. But if you follow after her, you will go where she goes. And in the end, you always walk it alone.

MARY:

No. No, it doesn’t have to be.

MADAM MALAIKA:

For twenty-five years, I have taken on the burdens that others could not. I know whereof I speak.

MARY:

So you’ve… traveled the world, carried so much… and there’s been no one?

MADAM MALAIKA:

It places them at risk. And there are not many who can bear it.

MARY:

Surely there’s been someone. Surely, in twenty-five years, there’s been someone who stood by you.

MADAM MALAIKA:

Some have tried. Once… there was one that I thought… I would try to keep. But he had responsibilities that held him. And mine would always call me away.

MARY:

But… how do you bear it? Isn’t it destroying you?

(Pause.)

MADAM MALAIKA:

Even as we speak. But that’s the truth of it.

MARY:

No. No, it can’t be the only way. Even Mrs. Hawking… she has me now, and Nathaniel. And it’s done her good, it’s changed her. I must believe that.

MADAM MALAIKA:

I hope you’re right. For your sake. Before she changes you.

MARY:

Everything I am, I am because of her. Without her, who would I be?

MADAM MALAIKA:

You would be Mary Stone. And who is that?