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Mrs. Hawking’s name

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Categories: character, influences, Tags: , , , , ,

I chose the title of the play not to name it after the main character, but specifically because it isn’t really her. Her full legal name is Victoria Cornelia Stanton Hawking, and no part of it belongs to her. I had a vague sense of this when I first picked the title of the play, but more I think about it, the more I realize just how completely, tragically true that is.

I’ve been watching a lot of documentaries on Victorian times recently, specifically ones about the queen. She was a fascinating lady, that’s for sure, and the more I learn, the more I think Mrs. Hawking would not care for her. The queen was of German extraction, and was likely the first time an English baby girl was given the name Victoria. If my calculations are correct, our heroine would have been born right around the time the queen was crowned. Her father, Gareth Stanton, was a high-ranking officer in the colonies, and so likely would have patriotically named the girl in her honor. So her given name came from a woman of whom I can’t see her having a high opinion. Meaningless.

Her middle name, Cornelia, I see as being her mother’s name. The woman died young and Victoria has no memory of her. And from everything she heard growing up about what a proper lady she was, Victoria would likely not think much of her either. Meaningless.

Stanton is her father’s surname, a symbol of his power over her when she was young. One of the driving forces behind her push to never be caged or controlled, to subvert the patriarchy and the rule of men, is her unending rage at her father, her eternal desire to get back at him. She had no attachment to his name. Meaningless.

And then there is the name she currently uses, has no choice but to use, that of her husband, Hawking. Her feelings for Reginald Hawking are complex, but she did not love him– she is not, I think, capable of romantic love –and she resented him intensely for the life that his love and marriage pressed her into. And now, even though he is gone, she still has his name, the mark of his will imposed over her identity. The name is a small thing to her, I think, in comparison to everything else, but still, the primary name by which the world knows her is meaningless to her.

I mentioned once that one of my all-time favorite Batman moments was one on Batman Beyond. One of the bad guys tries to make Bruce Wayne think he’s crazy by putting a voice in his head. But he knows it couldn’t possibly be from his own mind, because the voice called him Bruce. He doesn’t call himself Bruce. :-)

But as much as Mrs. Hawking is my Batman, she doesn’t have a superhero “chosen name” sort of thing. So… what does she call herself? If she has so little attachment to her given names, who is she in her own head?

I think I need to ponder this.

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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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