TW: Rape Mention, Homophobia, Abortion Mention, Child Abuse, Gory Descriptions
SYNOPSIS
The play opens with Sister Mary Ignatius starting a lecture where she explains where people go in the afterlife. Whenever she needs something, she requests the help of Thomas who she tests with catechisms. Shortly after going through their list of people going to hell, Sister requests a break and has Thomas answer a few questions. Along with explaining morality, Sister also talks about her family before she joined the nunnery. That’s when former students arrive to do their rendition of an old pageant. Afterwards the students and the sister reunite only for her to discover the students returned to embarrass her and have not been living their lives according to her teachings. Diane has had two abortions, Gary is gay, Philomena has a child out of wedlock, and Aloysius is a wife beating drunkard. Diane reveals that she blames Sister for her unhappy life and pulls a gun on the nun, but sister is the first to pull the trigger and murders Diane without remorse. Gary gave confession before coming in so the sister then also kills him so that he might go to heaven before he “sins” again and condemns his soul. The sister insists that the janitor will take care of the bodies when Thomas offers to help her. She then takes a nap with Thomas on her knee having given him the gun to make sure that Aloysius doesn’t go the restroom until the sister gives him permission even though she fully intends to make him wet his pants like she did when he was a child in her class.
CHARACTERS
Sister Mary Ignatius – Middle Aged
Thomas – 7
Gary Sullivan – 30ish
Diane Symonds – 30ish
Philomena Rostovich – 30ish
Aloysius Busiccio/Benheim – 30ish
POTENTIAL MONOLOGUES
Majority of the play is Sister Mary Ignatius giving a lesson on Catholic morality. Some parts of the monologue just explain the Catholic faith, at least the Sister’s interpretation of it. Of her ramblings I think some of the better to use as stand alone monologues would be her explaining the difference between the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth through explaining the infallibility of the Pope in certain circumstances. It showcases how ornery she is and how even Catholicism isn’t set in stone. Sister’s monologue comparing the suffering of her students to Christ and her own struggles is a good monologue for a squeamish crowd as it gets very graphic about Jesus’s crucifixion. There’s also where she answers the question about if she’s sorry she became a nun. It stands up pretty well against the test of time because her first thought to why she doesn’t regret joining the nunnery is that they allow meat to be eaten on Fridays now. Am iffy one is where the sister explains Sodom and its modern day equivalents. It’s humorous, but I would suggest using it only if you know your audience/auditioners would appreciate it, otherwise you may risk appearing like a homophobe. The sister has yet another monologue about her family explaining that they all went to the cloister or were institutionalized and segues into how God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no in a hilarious black comedy way. The truest monologue the Sister delivers is when she’s coming unraveled about her former students not following what she believes to be the clear teachings of the Catholic Church.
Diane is the only character with a monologue long enough to rival one of Sister Mary Ignatius’s. In it she reveals her backstory of her mother’s cancer and how she was raped the very same day that her mother died only to be raped again years later by the therapist she sought out for her PTSD from the event.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
This play is meant to be comedic, but it’s not what I would describe as funny. Unfortunately, the events that unfold feel too close to home and too realistic for me to laugh along with some of the jokes and part of that may come from the nearly 50 years since the play was first performed and my own strained relationship with Christianity. Sister Mary Ignatius is a hellfire and brimstone type of religious that uses her position to assert authority over her students. The child, Thomas, is meant to absolutely adore the Sister and it makes my skin crawl seeing his religious studies appear identical to brainwashing and grooming. While a comedy, the play is also definitely meant to be dark. You don’t have a woman like Diane reveal the kind of trauma she went through for laughs and indeed the only kind of laughter that would be appropriate during her monologue would be nervous or hysterical, definitely not one of amusement. I don’t think I could sit through a showing of this play knowing the nun murders a man out of religious homophobia because for me it’s beating a dead horse and I’m personally tired of seeing gay people die to tell the story of how sick and twisted homophobes can be. Of course, these are only my personal thoughts on the show as a person in 2021 and doesn’t mean that it’s a bad play or that it would be better if it were lost to time. Reading this play made me appreciate the way we’ve grown.
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