Doubt (movie tie-in edition)

John Patrick Shanley

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9781559363471
• eBook ISBN: 9781559366205
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Drama
• Index: Literature

Now a major motion picture! Starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley from his Pulitzer Prize–winning play.

“The best new play of the season. That rarity of rarities, an issue-driven play that is unpreachy, thought-provoking, and so full of high drama that the audience with which I saw it gasped out loud a half-dozen times at its startling twists and turns. Mr. Shanley deserves the highest possible praise: he doesn’t try to talk you into doing anything but thinking-hard-about the gnarly complexity of human behavior.”—Terry Teachout, The Wall Street Journal

“A breathtaking work of immense proportion. Positively brilliant.”—Melissa Rose Bernardo, Entertainment Weekly

“#1 show of the year. How splendid it feels to be trusted with such passionate, exquisite ambiguity unlike anything we have seen from this prolific playwright so far. In just ninety fast-moving minutes, Shanley creates four blazingly individual people. Doubt is a lean, potent drama . . . passionate, exquisite, important and engrossing.”—Linda Winer, Newsday

John Patrick Shanley is the author of numerous plays, including Danny in the Deep Blue Sea, Dirty Story, Four Dogs and a Bone, Psychopathia, Sexualis, Sailor’s Song, Savage in Limbo, and Where’s My Money? He has written extensively for TV and film, and his credits include the teleplay for Live from Baghdad and screenplays for Congo; Alive; Five Corners; Joe Versus the Volcano, which he also directed; and Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for best original screenplay.

VIII

Crossfade to the principal’s office. Sister Aloysius is sitting looking out the window, very still. A knock at the door. She doesn’t react. A second knock, louder. She pulls a small earplug out of her ear and scurries to the door. She opens it. There stands Mrs. Muller, a black woman of about thirty-eight, in her Sunday best, dressed for church. She’s on red alert.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Mrs. Muller?

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MRS. MULLER: Yes.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Come in.

(Sister Aloysius closes the door.)

Please have a seat.

MRS. MULLER: I thought I might a had the wrong day when you didn’t answer the door.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Oh. Yes. Well, just between us, I was listening to a transistor radio with an earpiece.

(She shows Mrs. Muller a very small transistor radio.)

Look at how tiny they’re making them now. I confiscated it from one of the students and now I can’t stop using it.

MRS. MULLER: You like music?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Not really. News reports. Years ago I used to listen to all the news reports because my husband was in Italy in the war. When I came into possession of this little radio, I found myself doing it again. Though there is no war and the voices have changed.

MRS. MULLER: You were a married woman?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Yes. But then he was killed. Is your husband coming?

MRS. MULLER: Couldn’t get off work.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I see. Of course. It was a lot to ask.

MRS. MULLER: How’s Donald doing?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: He’s passing his subjects. He has average grades.

MRS. MULLER: Oh. Good. He was upset about getting taken off the altar boys.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Did he explain why?

MRS. MULLER: He said he was caught drinking wine.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: That is the reason.

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MRS. MULLER: Well, that seems fair. But he’s a good boy, Sister. He fell down there, but he’s a good boy pretty much down the line. And he knows what an opportunity he has here. I think the whole thing was just a bit much for him.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: What do you mean, the whole thing?

MRS. MULLER: He’s the only colored here. He’s the first in this school. That’d be a lot for a boy.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I suppose it is. But he has to do the work of course.

MRS. MULLER: He is doing it though, right?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Yes. He’s getting by. He’s getting through. How is he at home?

MRS. MULLER: His father beat the hell out of him over that wine.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: He shouldn’t do that.

MRS. MULLER: You don’t tell my husband what to do. You just stand back. He didn’t want Donald to come here.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Why not?

MRS. MULLER: Thought he’d have a lot of trouble with the other boys. But that hasn’t really happened as far as I can make out.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Good.

MRS. MULLER: That priest, Father Flynn, been watching out for him.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Yes. Have you met Father Flynn?

MRS. MULLER: Not exactly, no. I seen him on the altar, but I haven’t met him face to face. No. Just, you know, heard from Donald.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: What does he say?

MRS. MULLER: You know, Father Flynn, Father Flynn. He looks up to him. The man gives him his time, which is what the boy needs. He needs that.

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SISTER ALOYSIUS: Mrs. Muller, we may have a problem.

MRS. MULLER: Well, I thought you must a had a reason for asking me to come in. Principal’s a big job. If you stop your day to talk to me, must be something. I just want to say though, it’s just till June.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Excuse me?

MRS. MULLER: Whatever the problem is, Donald just has to make it here till June. Then he’s off into high school.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Right.

MRS. MULLER: If Donald can graduate from here, he has a better chance of getting into a good high school. And that would mean an opportunity at college. I believe he has the intelligence. And he wants it, too.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I don’t see anything at this time standing in the way of his graduating with his class.

MRS. MULLER: Well, that’s all I care about. Anything else is all right with me.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I doubt that.

MRS. MULLER: Try me.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I’m concerned about the relationship between Father Flynn and your son.

MRS. MULLER: You don’t say. Concerned. What do you mean, concerned?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: That it may not be right.

MRS. MULLER: Uh-huh. Well, there’s something wrong with everybody, isn’t that so? Got to be forgiving.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I’m concerned, to be frank, that Father Flynn may have made advances on your son.

MRS. MULLER: May have made.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I can’t be certain.

MRS. MULLER: No evidence?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: No.

MRS. MULLER: Then maybe there’s nothing to it?

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SISTER ALOYSIUS: I think there is something to it.

MRS. MULLER: Well, I would prefer not to see it that way if you don’t mind.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I can understand that this is hard to hear. I think Father Flynn gave Donald that altar wine.

MRS. MULLER: Why would he do that?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Has Donald been acting strangely?

MRS. MULLER: No.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Nothing out of the ordinary?

MRS. MULLER: He’s been himself.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: All right.

MRS. MULLER: Look, Sister, I don’t want any trouble, and I feel like you’re on the march somehow.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I’m not sure you completely understand.

MRS. MULLER: I think I understand the kind of thing you’re talking about. But I don’t want to get into it.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: What’s that?

MRS. MULLER: Not to be disagreeing with you, but if we’re talking about something floating around between this priest and my son, that ain’t my son’s fault.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I’m not suggesting it is.

MRS. MULLER: He’s just a boy.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I know.

MRS. MULLER: Twelve years old. If somebody should be taking blame for anything, it should be the man, not the boy.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: I agree with you completely.

MRS. MULLER: You’re agreeing with me but I’m sitting in the principal’s office talking about my son. Why isn’t the priest in the principal’s office, if you know what I’m saying and you’ll excuse my bringing it up.

SISTER ALOYSIUS: You’re here because I’m concerned about Donald’s welfare.

MRS. MULLER: You think I’m not?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Of course you are.

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MRS. MULLER: Let me ask you something. You honestly think that priest gave Donald that wine to drink?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Yes, I do.

MRS. MULLER: Then how come my son got kicked off the altar boys if it was the man that gave it to him?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: The boy got caught, the man didn’t.

MRS. MULLER: How come the priest didn’t get kicked off the priesthood?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: He’s a grown man, educated. And he knows what’s at stake. It’s not so easy to pin someone like that down.

MRS. MULLER: So you give my son the whole blame. No problem my son getting blamed and punished. That’s easy. You know why that is?

SISTER ALOYSIUS: Perhaps you should let me talk. I think you’re getting upset.

MRS. MULLER: That’s because that’s the way it is. You’re just finding out about it, but that’s the way it is and the way it’s been, Sister. You’re not going against no man in a robe and win, Sister. He’s got the positio...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Preface
• Production History
• Epigraph
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• Copyright Page