Categotry Archives: looking ahead

Pondering about the future direction of the story and what further stories there are to tell.

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“Prowl After the Help” — scribbling on a future inclusion of Justin

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Categories: character, looking ahead, scenes, Tags: , , , ,

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This scene, set sometime in the future of the Mrs. Hawking continuity, is between Nathaniel and his elder brother Justin, who’s a world traveler and a bit of a rake. I wanted to write a conversation between the two of them, and I settled on a theoretical moment where Justin is in London and has been starting to hit on Mary, which Nathaniel, knowing his brother, doesn’t approve of.

I wanted to show the brothers’ relationship as well as possible raise large plot-relevant issues, which I think I succeeded with. The one thing I struggled to accomplish was I want it to subtly reveal some of the classism in Nathaniel that he hasn’t confronted yet– that he may think of himself as high-minded, but that he considers attraction to a lower-class person to be vulgar for a gentleman –and I’m not sure I executed with sufficient clarity and understatement. It was too easy to gloss over “I’m not attracted to people beneath my class” with “I don’t sexually harass people at work” and “I’m married and so not paying much attention to any outside people romantically.”

But I think I did a good job characterizing Justin. He tweaks Nathaniel, who’s way more of a goody-goody, which is fun. And I love writing the relationship between them as brothers. “Frasier” is one of my all-time favorite shows, and the way they depict the brothers and their relationship really is the best part.

~~~

NATHANIEL: Just what do you think you’re doing?

JUSTIN: Why, making friends.

NATHANIEL: Bollocks.

JUSTIN: Such language!

NATHANIEL: Don’t play the innocent with me. I see how you’re prowling around Mary.

JUSTIN: You said she’s a lovely girl, I wanted to make her acquaintance for myself.

NATHANIEL: I know what you want with lovely girls.

JUSTIN: Well, can you blame me?

NATHANIEL: Stay away from her.

JUSTIN: Why ever should I?

NATHANIEL: She’s a sweet and decent girl. She doesn’t deserve to be led on by the likes of you.

JUSTIN: Led on!

NATHANIEL: I’ll not have you telling her pretty lies just so you can…

JUSTIN: So I can what, brother?

NATHANIEL: Get your own way. Whatever that is.

JUSTIN: Ha! Who’s playing the innocent now?

NATHANIEL: Don’t be vulgar.

JUSTIN: Ha! I should think you’d know me by now, old boy.

NATHANIEL: And you call yourself a gentleman. I mean, really, Auntie’s maid?

JUSTIN: What’s the harm? It’s not like she has some grand society reputation to protect. Unless you think Aunt Victoria would be cross?

NATHANIEL: No! Well, perhaps, but–

JUSTIN: Well, I’m quite used to weathering Auntie’s wrath. What, do you think she’d dismiss the girl over it?

NATHANIEL: I don’t think so– but that’s not the point.

JUSTIN: Aunt Victoria doesn’t have to know.

NATHANIEL: It’s nothing to do with Aunt Victoria, for heaven’s sake!

JUSTIN: Then what’s it to you? Unless you fancy her.

NATHANIEL: Justin!

JUSTIN: Shame on you, you’re a married man.

NATHANIEL: It isn’t that! How dare you?

JUSTIN: It’s just as well. Wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.

NATHANIEL: Of course not.

JUSTIN: She is lovely girl, though, isn’t she?

NATHANIEL: She is.

JUSTIN: And you were the one that brought her here. Are you telling me you’ve never noticed her?

NATHANIEL: I don’t prowl after the help.

JUSTIN: I’d forgotten, you’re far too lofty to spare a glance to a creature of lower classes. I confess, though, I’d rather begun to wonder.

NATHANIEL: About what!?

JUSTIN: About why you spend so much time around Auntie’s maid. The fine old boy hasn’t descended to the level of the rest of us, has he? Started to envy all the fun I have while you’re bound up in the monotony of married life?

NATHANIEL: Yes, that’s it exactly, Justin, I’ve installed my working class mistress in my aunt’s own house because I wanted to be just like my dear big brother. Mary and I, we’ve… rather made friends, is all.

JUSTIN: Friends.

NATHANIEL: Yes! Is that so unheard of?

JUSTIN: I’d say so.

NATHANIEL: There’s no harm in it.

JUSTIN: Still, it’s very odd. Just out of curiosity, what does Clara think?

NATHANIEL: Of what?

JUSTIN: Of your most harmless friendship.

NATHANIEL: Well… I don’t suppose she knows much of it.

JUSTIN: You mean you’ve kept it from her? I thought she led you so around by the nose you had no secrets!

NATHANIEL: I don’t! Not really! It’s only that I haven’t… brought it up as yet.

JUSTIN: Hmmm. And why is that, do you think?

NATHANIEL: Oh, wipe that look off your face!

JUSTIN: You must know what that sounds like.

NATHANIEL: It’s nothing untoward!

JUSTIN: Then why, my virtuous brother, must you hide it?

NATHANIEL: I don’t mean to. I only… I only don’t know how to do it. Tell her, I mean.

JUSTIN: Afraid she’ll cast the same aspersion upon your character as I have just now?

NATHANIEL: I’m afraid she might… misunderstand.

JUSTIN: Oh, why worry for it? You need never tell her if it will only make trouble.

NATHANIEL: I hate keeping things from her.

JUSTIN: Why prod the bear if you don’t have to?

NATHANIEL: She’s my wife, Justin, not some terrible monster from the woods.

JUSTIN: Wives, terrors, it’s all the same to me. But it isn’t even as if you’re deceiving her. If you’ve done nothing, then you’ve nothing to tell her.

NATHANIEL: It isn’t only that.

JUSTIN: What, then? Do you she think she wouldn’t believe you?

NATHANIEL: Not so much that…

JUSTIN: Or wouldn’t approve?

NATHANIEL: Perhaps. Of my reasons for spending time with Miss Stone.

JUSTIN: And what might they be? Beyond her more obvious charms.

NATHANIEL: Oh, you wouldn’t understand.

JUSTIN: My. Must be byzantine indeed if it’s beyond both Clara and myself. Well, brother, I hope you can find a way to make things clear one way or another.

NATHANIEL: I thought you advocated avoiding the issue entirely.

JUSTIN: So I do. But I know you well enough to see it won’t sit well with you. And if you’re keeping it from your wife, it must be something remarkable indeed.

12/11/13

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“The Difference Between Us” — scribbling on Misses Stanton and Danvers

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Categories: character, gilded cages, looking ahead, scenes, Tags: , , ,

The piece I wrote the day before this one was about a future supervillain of Mrs. Hawking’s, a woman who was her friend growing up in the Asian colonies, who is as smart as she is but choose to manipulate the system rather than fight against it. The piece I wrote for August 27th during 31 Plays in 31 Days 2013 shows them back when they were young Victoria Stanton and Elizabeth Danvers, before they were married and became Mrs. Hawking and Mrs. Frost. I think I will reproduce an awesome comment here by a friend named Kat Davis, because she perfectly summed up exactly what I was going for:

“…Mrs. Hawking up against someone who can meet her on even footing. Seeing her actually sort of lose her cool and lose that sort of detached mentor-ish tone she always has with Mary (and, to a slightly lesser extent, the nephew), is refreshing. I like that Frost gets her worked up, gets inside her guard and gets to her in a way we really never have seen anything else do. I especially like that Frost sort of clucks her tongue and shakes her head and looks down on Hawking, who is always so aloof and above it all. There’s condescension and even, or at least how it reads to me (and how I would read it), a touch of pity. And not because of how she was forced into a life she rejected. Not for what was done to her. But rather for what and who she is.”

You’ll note I am naming the major female figures in the Mrs. Hawking universe after the queens of England. We have Victoria and Mary already. Mrs. Hawking’s nemesis and opposite, then, is Elizabeth– one of the most powerful and brilliant of them all.

~~~

Day #27 – “The Difference Between Us”

VICTORIA: What is that soldier up to, do you think? Hanging about like that?

ELIZABETH: There must be something he wants.

VICTORIA: Such as?

ELIZABETH: Could be any number of things. He could be on some assignment. He could want something from the territorial governor. Or…

VICTORIA: Or what?

ELIZABETH: Or a wife.

VICTORIA: Surely you’re not serious.

ELIZABETH: History has shown men are known to acquire wives from time to time. It happens to all of us before long.

VICTORIA: I am not about to be acquired by anyone, I promise you that.

ELIZABETH: Is that so?

VICTORIA: You know me, Elizabeth. Do you think I could bear to be any man’s nursemaid?

ELIZABETH: I doubt you’ll have much of a choice, when your father decides it’s time.

VICTORIA: Ha! That would require the leftenant to lift his notice to me long enough to recall that I exist.

ELIZABETH: Unmarried daughters lying around are often just inconvenient enough to attract attention.

VICTORIA: Even if that does happen, you can be certain I shan’t go quietly.

ELIZABETH: Oh? And what are you doing to do?

VICTORIA: Whatever it takes!

ELIZABETH: That’s not the way the world works, Victoria.

VICTORIA: Then blast the world.

ELIZABETH: I don’t think it should be so simple.

VICTORIA: What choice do we have? Else to buckle under?

ELIZABETH: I don’t mean to buckle.

VICTORIA: What, then?

ELIZABETH: I mean to make my best advantage.

VICTORIA: I don’t understand.

ELIZABETH: Why fight against the current when you’ve no hope to change its course? Instead, why not ride it where you wish to go?

VICTORIA: Because there’s no such place that it could take me. Is that what you want? Is that enough for you?

ELIZABETH: There is the difference between us, dear. I will not drown myself to spite the water.

8/27/13

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Across the universes

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Categories: looking ahead, supplemental, Tags: , , ,

It was suggested to me once by Jami Brandli, one of my excellent writing mentors at Lesley, that these Mrs. Hawking stories should exist in the same universe as The Tailor at Loring’s End and Mrs. Loring, stories I told about Fairfield, a small town in Connecticut, in the 1930s. They are set in fairly distinct milieus, but they both take place in more or less the real world and deal with somewhat similar ideas– they tend to be mysteries, and deal with themes like societal injustice, classism, and feminism. So there’s certainly something appealing about the idea. Thinking about it, the one other story-world of mine that I think could integrate into those others is The Stand, my series of cowboy stories from the American westward expansion period. It’s another historical fiction that takes place in more or less the real world. I like the idea of connections, that these various characters and story that I’m interested in could relate to each other in some way– maybe even meet.

The timelines do overlap a bit, but they are offset enough to curtail character interactions between the three. Space also makes for a real divide. The Stand takes place in 1849 in California, Mrs. Hawking in 1880s London, and Tailor at Loring’s End in Connecticut of 1934. To illustrate the point, it turns out that Mary Stone and Reginald Loring, patriarch of one of the important family in the stories, are about the same age. Which means, for example, if I ever wanted the leads of Mrs. Hawking and of The Tailor of Loring’s End to meet, Mary would be an old woman, and Mrs. Hawking herself probably wouldn’t be alive anymore.

But I would like to figure out some way to make connections between them. Character appearances, family relationships, that sort of thing. Bernie suggested that maybe Alice Loring from Tailor would be a good candidate for Mary’s eventual recruitment, when she assembles a team of heroic women. I also like the idea of some cool American cowboy– or more likely, cowgirl –showing up in London and bringing an adventure to Mrs. Hawking. Those two stories are thirty years, a continent, and an ocean apart, but perhaps an aged version of someone in The Stand or even one of their descendants. I’m not sure what the best way to do it is, but I would like to figure it out.

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“I wonder… did she ever tell the Colonel?” — scribbling while looking ahead

Categories: character, development, looking ahead, scenes, vivat regina, Tags: , , , ,

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I’ve been working on the sequel to Mrs. Hawking quite a bit lately, and while in that mindset, I wrote this little scene, a conversation between Mary and Nathaniel. I think the two of them would become good friends after the first adventure, in part because I think they both love having somebody with which to marvel at just how weird Mrs. Hawking is. I get the feelings they spend a lot of time sitting around psychoanalyzing her, the way you would any brilliant/infuriating friend or boss or both. :-) This notion amuses me greatly.

Also, there is the problem of the Colonel. Oh, how delighted I am at the questions posed by the Colonel, as it gives endless opportunity for speculation. I love how the audience wonders about him, and I love how the characters cant stop arguing over him. This is a particular bee in Nathaniel’s bonnet, because he idolized the man and had such a firm image of him in his head that he must now reconcile with Mrs. Hawking’s perceptions and experience. And I think it’s also interesting how Mary has to construct an idea of the person who she has never met but has had such a profound effect on two people who are so important to her.

~~~

MARY: I wonder… did she ever tell the Colonel?

NATHANIEL: Tell him what?

MARY: How unhappy she was.

NATHANIEL: I don’t know. But, if I were to guess… I should think she didn’t.

MARY: No?

NATHANIEL: I really think not.

MARY: She was so angry, though. One says things in anger.

NATHANIEL: She would have had to trust him to tell him what she really thought. And that she could never do.

MARY: It would have been an incredible risk.

NATHANIEL: I know. And that was not something she would have undertaken for his sake. Still… I wonder if he knew anyhow.

MARY: Do you? If she went to great pains to keep things from him?

NATHANIEL: Oh, I don’t doubt that. Heaven knows she is capable of things I never would have fathomed possible… but he wasn’t a fool, Mary. And he loved her, blast it; if there’s one thing I shall never disbelieve of him, it’s that. He would have… had a care that she was so… miserable… with things as they were.

MARY: But if he knew, how could he have done nothing for it, then?

NATHANIEL: She would never have wanted him to.

MARY: Certainly not. But still… I should think he might have tried.

NATHANIEL: Not if he understood.

MARY: Do you think he did?

NATHANIEL: He may have hardly known her, Mary… but I think he knew her well enough to know that. And I believe he would have loved her enough to give it to her.

MARY: If that’s so… I wonder what else he might have given her. If he knew she needed it.

6/8/13

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“Reading the Signs” — opening scene of Vivat Regina

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Categories: development, looking ahead, scenes, vivat regina, Tags: , , ,

 

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Over the past year I’ve been working on the first sequel, which I’m currently referring to as Vivat Regina. I like the idea of opening the next Mrs. Hawking story by showing the women at work, specifically of Mrs. Hawking teaching Mary about how to use observation and deductive reasoning (well, technically inductive, but whatever) in the process of working on cases. I wanted to bang out a draft of this scene for August 18th, 2013 just for the purposes of catching up on 31 Plays in 31 Days.

One thing I’ve learned in the course of writing plays, or anything really, is that it’s better to get SOMETHING down on the page, to get some draft just written, so that the thing exists. Otherwise you get so wrapped up in how you’re not ready to write it in its current imperfect form that you never end up writing it at all. At least if you have a draft, you have something, and you can always improve it afterward.

~~~

Day #18 – “Reading the Signs”

(A fancy Victorian society party. Women glide around in gowns with men in white tie. Waiters carry around trays of champagne glasses and push around serving trolleys. After a moment some peel away from the center, revealing a tall, dark-haired young woman holding a fan to her face. When she moves it aside, we see that it is MARY. She flutters it and speaks seemingly to no one under her breath.)

MARY: The timing is too coincidental. It has to be someone here. But there’s no sign of them.

(MRS. HAWKING in her stealth suit pokes her head out from her hiding place behind a drapery.)

MRS. HAWKING: Nonsense. The signs are there, you just aren’t looking properly.

(People approach and MRS. HAWKING hides again. MARY walks quickly away and makes a loop around the party. When people move off again, she returns to the drapery.)

MRS. HAWKING: Consider the circumstances.

MARY: The gems are heavy, and there are a number of them. Difficult to secret about one’s person.

MRS. HAWKING: There’s a start.

MARY: But there hasn’t been time to go far. They have to still be here somewhere.

MRS. HAWKING: Sound so far.

(Other guests draw near. She ducks back behind the drapery and MARY acts casual until they leave.)

MARY: They must have been hidden somewhere nearby. Somewhere within easy reach, but not where others are likely to find it.

MRS. HAWKING: And where would that be?

MARY: I… I don’t know.

MRS. HAWKING: Oh, come now!

(People pass by again and MRS. HAWKING hides. MARY moves to the other side of the stage. MRS. HAWKING pops back out of the drapery on that side.)

MRS. HAWKING: Think, girl.

MARY: In the flower arrangements.

MRS. HAWKING: Too conspicuous to disturb.

(Again MARY moves. MRS. HAWKING disappears behind the drape..)

MARY: The wall sconces.

MRS. HAWKING: Not enough concealment.

MARY: Under the banquet tables?

MRS. HAWKING: Rank amateurism.

MARY: The chandelier?

MRS. HAWKING: Now you’re being absurd. I would have seen them already!

(Someone approaches. MARY sweeps her skirt around so that MRS. HAWKING can hide beneath them.)

MARY: I don’t know!

MRS. HAWKING: I said think, Miss Stone! A place nearby, unlikely to be disturbed, easily accessed to recover the spoils!

(MARY looks about, shaking her head desperately. Then her eye settles on one of the waiters with a serving trolley.)

MARY: Madam…

MRS. HAWKING: Now you’ve got it.

MARY: Shall we, then?

MRS. HAWKING: Quickly and quietly, now. Go.

(MRS. HAWKING gets out from under MARY’s skirts and back behind the drapery. MARY weaves her way to the waiter. Pretending to look away, MARY moves in front of the trolley and allows it to crash into her.)

MARY: Oh!

(She dramatically falls over. The waiter startles and hurries to help her up. The other guests watch them in surprise. While they are distracted, MRS. HAWKING darts out of concealment and snatches one of the covered trays off the trolley. She disappears back behind the drapery.)

(After MARY disengages from the waiter, she makes another circuit of the part, accepting people’s concern and gracefully putting them off. At last she settles in front of the drapes again. Her body blocks from view MRS. HAWKING emerging, now in a black maid’s dress, with the tray in her arms.)

MRS. HAWKING: Mission accomplished. Reconvene at base. About time, Miss Stone.

(She hustles out. MARY smiles.)

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Hawking, Incorporated

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Categories: character, influences, looking ahead, themes, Tags: , , , , , ,

One thing I will have to explore sometime in the far future of these stories is the eventual aging of Mrs. Hawking. I made a conscious choice to depict her as forty years old when our story opens in 1880, and though she is a remarkably healthy and fit individual, as time goes on she will have to face the inevitable truth that eventually everyone physically deteriorates.

I think this will be extremely hard for her. So much of her work, upon which she bases her identity, requires her being an agile infiltrator and a dangerous fighter, all of which require her to be strong, flexible, and able to endure, and heal quickly from, injury. I also think that the idea of becoming a fragile old woman terrifies her. Even today we live in a culture that devalues weak old woman, and I think her own distaste for weakness made it so that she could not help but internalize it. Coming to terms with being unable to do the work by which she defines herself will be one of the greatest struggles of her life.

In the second story, she is going to settle upon the idea that Mary will be the one to continue on her work when she can’t do it anymore. Mary is not only her assistant but her protege and eventual successor. But I think she has not yet really thought about how this won’t just be after she’s dead– there will come a point in her lifetime when Mary will have to take over because she just can’t physically do it anymore. I think that struggle is going to make an impression on Mary as well. And that is going to spur her forward.

As I’ve said many times, Mary is the dynamic force that will take everything that’s great about Mrs. Hawking’s work and ways and bring it to a whole new level. She is not limited by the old resentments and psychological baggage that her mistress is. I think she’s going to see the enormous potential they have to do good and realize that it doesn’t have to be just a few women against the world, the way Mrs. Hawking has always seen it. I think Mary is going to start bringing in more people, and making a true organization devoted to society avenging.

A big inspiration for Mrs. Hawking has always been the character of Batman. A brilliant, brooding, lone wolf detective simultaneously motivated and handicapped by old psychological wounds. We’re already heading toward something that resembles the Bat Family, as it’s called, the group of heroes associated with Batman. If Mrs. Hawking is our Batman, Mary is a combination of Robin and Alfred, both her assistant and protege as well as her lifeline against losing herself in her own darkness. In the upcoming second story, our “Hawk Family” as it were, will expand to officially include Nathaniel as well.

In the excellent animated series Batman Beyond, Bruce Wayne goes through a similar struggle coming to terms with aging out of the ability to be a crime fighter. The solution there was to recruit someone new to be Batman who could act where our hero couldn’t, with the original Batman as his mentor and adviser. While Mary herself will never work in exactly the same manner as Mrs. Hawking, she recognizes the need for such ability. So I think eventually Mary is going to propose bringing in others who can expand the team, with Mary as their leader, and Mrs. Hawking as their trainer. In time, it may come to even resemble “Batman, Incorporated,” a concept from the comics where Batman essentially expands into franchises across the world, training people such that every city has a trained Batman to protect them. I love the idea of Mary recruiting youths (mostly women, but I doubt she’d turn away boys as well) and leading them as a team of society avengers fighting for justice, trained by their original and inspiration, Mrs. Hawking.

This would not happen until fairly far down the line. A great deal of adventure is to be had before then. But I think it would be an excellent evolution, and fitting consummation of their talents, to move in time to a point where brave young women are trained by fierce and cunning Mrs. Hawking and under the brave and sensible direction of Mary.

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Musing on a prequel story

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Categories: gilded cages, looking ahead, Tags: , , , ,

Thinking so much about Mrs. Hawking makes me think of all the other possible stories that could be told about those characters and that world. It’s very much set up to be a series of adventures, given that they theoretically work “cases,” so even though Shakespeare is the only theater writer I can think of that does sequels with any success, I can’t help but think of what else could happen to our society avengers.

I would love to write an “origin story” of sorts for Mrs. Hawking, how she came to become the female-Sherlock-Holmes-Batman that she is, detailing her youth and circumstances that made her who she is. What I see of her background is that she grew up the child of a local governor in the Asian colonies or something like that. Her father had a native valet with a martial background who she insisted teach her how to stalk and sneak and fight. And there would have to be something that introduced her to her trade, some injustice to women that would pull her into her true calling, of avenging those who society had trapped and wronged. Her resentment toward her father is a huge motivator for her in the present day, so the cause thereof could give me a great deal to work with.

One character people ask me about a lot in regards to this story is the Colonel, the esteemed Reginald Prescott Hawking, Mrs. Hawking’s late husband. As he died before the events of the play, we do not actually meet him. In fact, all we know about him is provided by his two family members, his wife and his nephew Nathaniel. What makes it interesting is that they have very different perceptions of him, and neither of them are totally reliable narrators. Nate idolizes him while she resents the hell out of him, and I like to think that neither of them are entirely right, nor entirely wrong. That origin play would also have to include how she and the Colonel met, how they got married, what led to all Mrs. Hawking’s resentment.

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An anti-Mrs. Hawking

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Categories: gilded cages, looking ahead, scenes, Tags: , ,

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In a future story, I would love to give our hero an opponent who was the “anti-Mrs. Hawking,” a woman just as devious and formidable as she, but who uses and manipulates the system to take advantage of women’s social entrapment for her own ends. This is interesting because I think Mrs. Hawking’s usual opponents are men, not other women. They could have a secret war, and I think it should be someone who knows her, someone for whom such actions would be a deep betrayal. I also like the idea that she would know Mrs. Hawking’s ways. Our hero trades on being unsuspected and underestimated, but would not have that advantage over an opponent who knows her for what she is.

I actually like the idea that they grew up together, that they were good friends in their youth in New Guinea. I could include this character in the prequel that details that time. I think at that point I would give no hint to her future villainy, but establish her as having a mentality in conflict with our hero to foreshadow it. And so when she did recur later, as the villain of a later story, it would be particularly shocking to Mrs. Hawking, and seem all that more treacherous.

I call her Elizabeth Frost, nee Danvers. You’ll note I am naming the major female figures in the Mrs. Hawking universe after the queens of England. We have Victoria and Mary already. Mrs. Hawking’s nemesis and opposite, then, is Elizabeth– one of the most powerful and brilliant of them all.

I scribbled a small scene with her this summer. I’m not sure of all its details and it’s not grounded in a plot yet, but it gives a vague idea of who this woman is, and how she interacts with our hero:

~~~

MRS. FROST: It’s no use, Victoria. I know you’re in here somewhere.

(MR. HAWKING emerges from the canopy on the balcony door and land catlike on the floor.)

MRS. FROST: Hmm. The canopy, very cunning. I would have guessed you’d be clinging to the transom.

MRS. HAWKING: It’s been a long time, Elizabeth.

MRS. FROST: Yes, it has. But some things never change.

MRS. HAWKING: I had wondered what become of you after that Frost man took you away. I never suspected this.

MRS. FROST: You make your own way in the world, and I make mine.

MRS. HAWKING: On the backs of helpless women?

MRS. FROST: You never did grasp how the world works, Victoria.

MRS. HAWKING: Oh, I grasp it. I just refuse to be complicit in it.

MRS. FROST: Complicit? No, not you, never you. You’ve never gone along with anything in your life when you could wage all-out war on it instead.

MRS. HAWKING: A world and a system I have spent my life defending helpless women against, you manipulate and exploit to your own advantage.

MRS. FROST: Oh, spare me your righteous wrath, darling.

MRS. HAWKING: You are as bad as any of them!

MRS. FROST: And you are hero, is that it? You are a beast in a menagerie pounding against the bars of your cage! For all your work and all your heroics, what have you done? So you pulled a few petty bacons from the fire. Nothing has changed, the world still traps us and uses us and batters us down! Do you honestly believe you can put an end to all that on your own?

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Mary’s big future

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Categories: character, looking ahead, Tags: , ,

Of course a big part of any further stories will have to be Mary’s future. Mary would definitely need to come into her own even more, more independence, more agency. She will become more and more important to Mrs. Hawking’s work, to the point where she is not totally just the protege and able to contribute more on her own.

She also will have to develop separately from the path of Mrs. Hawking. I’d love Mary to eventually meet someone and have a romance with a gentleman who was worthy of her, who of course Mrs. Hawking would despise because she would hope Mary to be a confirmed lone wolf like herself. I think a major issue to sort out will be that while the women compliment each other, they are also extremely different from each other, and those differences will sometimes make it difficult to always work in harmony together. I think that will be a great source of dramatic tension.

Honestly, in many ways the story is Mary’s more even than Mrs. Hawking’s. She is, you will notice, the only character in every single scene in the original piece. Mary turned out to be even more central and significant than I ever expected, so I would want her to continue to grow and develop, and, as she proved to be remarkably good at, to force Mrs. Hawking to do the same.

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Bare Bones reading accomplished, and musing on next steps

Categories: looking ahead, mrs. hawking, performance, Tags: , ,

 

I am pleased to report that my staged reading of Mrs. Hawking at Bare Bones went well. We filled the house and the presentation went off without a hitch. I was very happy with the actors, and the script is in fairly good shape. There’s a few things I want to change since the reading but not too much, so I think it’s in a pretty tight state.

The question here is next steps. The audience reacted really well to it, but many of them were like, this is begging for sequels, and it’s action, while stageable, is somewhat cinematic– certainly expensive, which may prevent it from ever being produced. That’s something that has been on my mind. Unknown writers do not often get production with big budgets. I hate to think the play will never see any future because of that. And yet, I think some of its expensive bits– the milieu expressed in set and costumes, the stunts –would be part of the story’s appeal.

So I am pondering ways around this sort of thing. I chatted a bit with after the production (and during the lovely cast party reading star hosted) and he spitballed some interesting thoughts. He said it might have a possibility to become a “Kickstarter darling,” appealing to people who like Victoriana, strong female characters, and the neat combination thereof into an action-adventure mystery caper. If I could get the word out to the right people, and a large enough group of them, I could see that. Also the medium is in question. Brad mentioned that it would be fun to pitch it to PBS as a “action Downton Abbey,” which amuses me. I’m sure that’s a little bit too ambitious for them to take me seriously right now, but with some capital, would it be possible to film on my own? I am, I think, capable of adapting it to screenplay. A feature-length already crossed my mind, but I thought maybe that might push the chances of ever seeing it come to production even further. But what if it were in more episodic form? Do each “adventure” as a multi-part “series” of episodes, along the lines of how Sherlock has “series” rather than “seasons”? I am not trained in film production myself, but might that form place it more within the reach of finding someone who could help me bring it to reality?

A lot of stuff to think about. I’m not sure what makes the most sense. But I would love to figure it out.

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