31 Plays in 31 Days, #15 - “No Regrets”
Aug. 15th, 2021 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breakinglight11A 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”
From the Mrs. Hawking series
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~
MRS. MARY SWANN, once a society avenger, now a middle-class wife, late twenties
MADAM MALAIKA SHAH, colonial avenger, late forties
New York, NY, 1890
~~~
MADAM MALAIKA: Mrs. Arthur Swann. I thought that might be you.
MARY: Madam Malaika! You’re in New York!
MADAM MALAIKA: Where empires go, there is often need of one like me. You live here now?
MARY: Yes. I married, and my husband is security chief at the British Embassy. But… you knew that already, I suppose.
MADAM MALAIKA: It’s seems you’ve come up in the world. And… come away.
MARY: Yes. I have. I… I think you knew that I would. You were right in that.
MADAM MALAIKA: Was I, then? I see.
(Pause.)
MARY: It’s very good to see you, madam. Is this… a social visit? Or there something I can do for you?
MADAM MALAIKA: There is, as a matter of a fact. I have charges who are British subjects in need of safe passage into the city. I have asylum papers that call for signatures— perhaps, with your position, you know how to see that they make their way under the proper pens. Do you think… you have that sort of influence?
MARY: Even if I don’t, I can see that it’s done. One way or another. I haven’t forgotten all the old tricks.
MADAM MALAIKA: Thank you, I’m grateful.
(MADAM MALAIKA hands over the papers.)
MADAM MALAIKA: So… you are well and truly out of it, then?
MARY: I… yes, I suppose so. I have a baby now, and after all that happened… I thought it for the best that I leave that work behind. It’s as you said, madam. I couldn’t go where she was bound. Not if I wanted to stay myself.
MADAM MALAIKA: Indeed. I suppose that follows. I knew, but… still, I had hoped perhaps I was wrong. But it’s better to be certain.
MARY: Madam?
MADAM MALAIKA: It isn’t only the papers. When I realized you’d come here, I knew it what it had to mean. That you and she had broken, and you’d had to leave to save your own life. But you did move on, didn’t you? You are happier now?
MARY: I… it’s still so new. The wounds are still raw. I… haven’t made sense of it all yet.
MADAM MALAIKA: I had hoped… that you survived. That you could make it out whole, in spite of it all. But you had to leave to do it.
MARY: Madam, forgive me, but… is there something else?
MADAM MALAIKA: I have in recent years… worked to make bonds of my own. Women of like mind, who might understand my experience. Finally I’ve seen what it is when you no longer have to go it alone. Because you and yours had given me hope that it would be possible to bring people into my life without ruining them.
MARY: Oh, madam.
MADAM MALAIKA: But if even you were lucky to escape unscathed… perhaps I was right all along.
MARY: Madam, no. I wasn’t ruined. Quite the opposite— the work I did there made me. Yes, I had to leave her in the end— but she chose her way. It didn’t have to be like it was. You needn’t be what she became.
MADAM MALAIKA: We are more alike than I care to think, sometimes. But I know her because it’s true.
MARY: Well. Even so. What I learned, who I became… it’s still the very best thing that ever happened to me. I shall carry it always, to everything I ever do. Even if I never raise a fist or hatch a plot again. And I can’t speak for your friends… but it could give them every bit that it gave me.
MADAM MALAIKA: You don’t regret it, then?
MARY: Not for a moment.
(Pause.)
MADAM MALAIKA: Thank you, Mrs. Swann. For your help, and for that. We’ll speak again soon.
(MADAM MALAIKA departs, and MARY is left behind, thoughtful.)
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”
From the Mrs. Hawking series
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~
MRS. MARY SWANN, once a society avenger, now a middle-class wife, late twenties
MADAM MALAIKA SHAH, colonial avenger, late forties
New York, NY, 1890
~~~
MADAM MALAIKA: Mrs. Arthur Swann. I thought that might be you.
MARY: Madam Malaika! You’re in New York!
MADAM MALAIKA: Where empires go, there is often need of one like me. You live here now?
MARY: Yes. I married, and my husband is security chief at the British Embassy. But… you knew that already, I suppose.
MADAM MALAIKA: It’s seems you’ve come up in the world. And… come away.
MARY: Yes. I have. I… I think you knew that I would. You were right in that.
MADAM MALAIKA: Was I, then? I see.
(Pause.)
MARY: It’s very good to see you, madam. Is this… a social visit? Or there something I can do for you?
MADAM MALAIKA: There is, as a matter of a fact. I have charges who are British subjects in need of safe passage into the city. I have asylum papers that call for signatures— perhaps, with your position, you know how to see that they make their way under the proper pens. Do you think… you have that sort of influence?
MARY: Even if I don’t, I can see that it’s done. One way or another. I haven’t forgotten all the old tricks.
MADAM MALAIKA: Thank you, I’m grateful.
(MADAM MALAIKA hands over the papers.)
MADAM MALAIKA: So… you are well and truly out of it, then?
MARY: I… yes, I suppose so. I have a baby now, and after all that happened… I thought it for the best that I leave that work behind. It’s as you said, madam. I couldn’t go where she was bound. Not if I wanted to stay myself.
MADAM MALAIKA: Indeed. I suppose that follows. I knew, but… still, I had hoped perhaps I was wrong. But it’s better to be certain.
MARY: Madam?
MADAM MALAIKA: It isn’t only the papers. When I realized you’d come here, I knew it what it had to mean. That you and she had broken, and you’d had to leave to save your own life. But you did move on, didn’t you? You are happier now?
MARY: I… it’s still so new. The wounds are still raw. I… haven’t made sense of it all yet.
MADAM MALAIKA: I had hoped… that you survived. That you could make it out whole, in spite of it all. But you had to leave to do it.
MARY: Madam, forgive me, but… is there something else?
MADAM MALAIKA: I have in recent years… worked to make bonds of my own. Women of like mind, who might understand my experience. Finally I’ve seen what it is when you no longer have to go it alone. Because you and yours had given me hope that it would be possible to bring people into my life without ruining them.
MARY: Oh, madam.
MADAM MALAIKA: But if even you were lucky to escape unscathed… perhaps I was right all along.
MARY: Madam, no. I wasn’t ruined. Quite the opposite— the work I did there made me. Yes, I had to leave her in the end— but she chose her way. It didn’t have to be like it was. You needn’t be what she became.
MADAM MALAIKA: We are more alike than I care to think, sometimes. But I know her because it’s true.
MARY: Well. Even so. What I learned, who I became… it’s still the very best thing that ever happened to me. I shall carry it always, to everything I ever do. Even if I never raise a fist or hatch a plot again. And I can’t speak for your friends… but it could give them every bit that it gave me.
MADAM MALAIKA: You don’t regret it, then?
MARY: Not for a moment.
(Pause.)
MADAM MALAIKA: Thank you, Mrs. Swann. For your help, and for that. We’ll speak again soon.
(MADAM MALAIKA departs, and MARY is left behind, thoughtful.)
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