Larger Than Life: Sister Mary Ignatius

Note: This blog post contains spoilers (about a Chistopher Durang play that's over thirty years old, so if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for? It's a one-act, won't take you long at all. Hop to it and then come back here.)

The second play we're reading for the playwriting workshop I'm taking is another play I read when I was at St. Louis University, around 1980 or 1981: Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You by Christopher Durang. I remembered the play being wickedly funny satire; I remembered St. Mary Ignatius being larger than life; and I didn't remember a thing about the plot except that Sister Mary Ignatius lectured about Catholicism. That speaks volumes to me about Durang's effectiveness in creating the eponymous character because, for better or worse, she outshines the other elements of the play.

Durang starts by using the stereotype of a conservative nun in traditional wimple and veil. This could only be used effectively in a satire such as this play, but Sister is more than simply a stereotype used for satirical purposes. I like that Durang creates a positive motivation for the things that Sister Mary Ignatius does in the play. When she shoots Gary it isn't because she hates homosexuals, it's for the best possible reason she could have. She believes he'll go to hell because he's an unrepentant homosexual; by killing him after having gone to confession, Sister is sending Gary to heaven. This isn't rationalization for the sake of justification: she believes it.

Durang also uses selectivity effectively in creating dialogue for Sister Mary Ignatius.  "The secret of good dialogue is selectivity—finding the conversation that most reveals the lives of the speakers, finding the expression that means more than itself, finding the word that the audience can instantly absorb and interpret" (Leib). The catechism that Sister discusses in the play is directly tied to the events of her childhood; the audience quickly understands that the convent must have been a refuge for Sister. Her desire to understand the terrible things that God could allow to happen in life conflicts with her desire to be a good Catholic. When Sister says "the only reason God has not destroyed these modern-day Sodoms is that Catholic nuns and priests live in these cities, and God does not wish to destroy them" (Durang 200), she is making the nonsensical fit within the realm of her Catholic beliefs. All of the dialogue Durang has written for Sister is tied to the specific action and themes of the play.

While the Catholic church has been the butt of jokes for at least decades, probably centuries, I am hard-pressed to think of nuns like Sister Mary Ignatius being lampooned until right around the time when Durang was writing this play. While he was working on this play in New York, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of mostly gay men who dress up as nuns to rebel against gender roles, increase AIDS awareness, and raise money for charities, were coming into existence in San Francisco. It was a time when there was a lot of religious oppression directed at the LGBT community. As a gay man, I think Durang channeled his anger into a very funny play full of dark, unexpected moments.

Still, I can't help but think there wasn't enough plot for this to be a full-length play, and perhaps because of that, I don't come away from reading this play believing that there is much of a character arc for Sister Mary Ignatius. There is conflict and rising action, first with the audience being lectured, and then with the former students admitting they have not come to present the pageant for altruistic reasons. We do see Sister move from verbal action to physical action, as the play progresses; however, I don't think she changes very much from start to finish. By the end of the play I want her to be a changed woman, to have some kind of epiphany, and instead she takes a nap. She's killed two people but she hasn't seemed to really change. While that supports a theme that explores the absurdity of an unbending, behind-the-times Catholic Church, it leaves me somewhat unfulfilled. Sister Mary Ignatius is a well-developed character and I think she deserved a better plot.

Works Cited

Durang, Christopher. "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You." Plays From the Contemporary American Theater, ed. Brooks McNamara. New York: Signet Classic, 1988. 193-225. Print.

Leib, Mark E. "Overview of Playwriting." Writing Commons. n.d. Web. 18 July 2014.

Withstanding the Test of Time

I am taking a playwriting workshop this term and writing a ten-minute play as part of the class. Last week I turned in a pitch for my play; this week all of us in the workshop are critiquing everyone's  pitches. We also had to read and blog about Beth Henley's play, Crimes of the Heart, and how techniques that she used may be helpful with our own plays. There's a Works Cited section at the bottom even though I didn't quote from the play. I simply wanted to acknowledge the version of the script I read this week. Here's what I wrote for the class:

I first read Crimes of the Heart the year that it was produced on Broadway. I was a Theatre major at St. Louis University, and it was a play about women in a time when there weren't necessarily a lot of great roles for female actors; a lot of people in the department were doing scene work from this play. The first thing that struck me about this play were the characters: they were all women I have known in my life and they were all women I saw a piece of myself in. I am not from the south and do not have any sisters, but I really liked this play when I read it the first time; I still do.

I like that Henley made the setting of the play in the kitchen of the MaGrath house. Kitchen are the places where people, especially family, gather. The moment the curtain goes up, the audience is informed that this will be an intimate play; it's a good foundation for the other spectacle elements of the play that she cannot control, such as the actors' performances and the set. The ten minute play I pitched takes place in the parlor of a Bed & Breakfast inn for much the same reason: my play will explore family in an intimate context but in a slightly more public one.

My play will have all female characters who are lesbians and I have worried about distinguishing them from one another since they are friends with similar interests. In Crimes of the Heart, Henley effectively uses the sisters as foils for each other and I think that is a good approach for me to take as well. Lenny, Meg, and Babe have common family experiences as well as being sisters. Despite the commonalities, Henley wrote them as women who have made different life choices; they have different personalities, and the dysfunction in their family provides ample opportunity to show those differences.

It's no surprise to me that this play won a Pulitzer: it uses all of the elements of drama effectively. It's a play that still speaks to me even though it's been over thirty years since the first time I read it.

Works Cited

Henley, Beth. “Crimes of the Heart.” Plays from the Contemporary American Theater. Ed. Brooks McNamara. New York: Signet Classic, 2002.