Agnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation. The title is a pun on the Latin phrase Agnus Dei (Lamb of God).
The play was adapted for a movie in 1985, starring Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft and Meg Tilly.
The stage play contains a great deal more dialogue than the film and relies solely on the three main characters: Martha, the Psychiatrist; the Mother Superior; and Agnes, the Novice. There are no other characters on stage.
All three roles are demanding. Martha covers the full gamut of emotion during the play, from nurturer to antagonist, from hard nosed court psychiatrist and atheist to faith-searching healer. She is always on stage and has only three small respites from monologues or dialogue while Agnes and the Mother Superior enact flashbacks to events at the convent.
The Mother Superior must expound the possibilities of miracles while recognising the realities of today's world, of which she is painfully aware. Agnes is a beautiful but tormented soul whose abusive upbringing has affected her ability to think rationally.
The play has enjoyed a revival among Catholic women's groups, who believe it examines important moral and spiritual issues that Catholic women must face. The issues raised by the real-life incident are just as compelling, though less dramatic.
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Plot
Pielmeier's plot features Sister Agnes, a young and ignorant novice of French ethnicity, molested by her mother as a child, who sings in an ethereal voice and was impregnated by an unknown entity, which makes for much of the mystery of the drama. The psychiatrist Martha Livingston interrogates her and narrates the story
Background
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This drama is widely believed to be based on an actual incident, which occurred in a convent in Brighton, New York, just outside the city line of Rochester.
However, Sister Maureen, the nun who killed her baby, was thirty-six years old, Irish, and well-educated. She was a Montessori teacher in New York state, which required teachers to obtain bachelor's degrees and to be certified. In order to obtain permanent certification, teachers also required a Master's degree in education.
Sister Maureen denied she had given birth; when examined by medical staff, she said she couldn't remember being pregnant. She had covered up the pregnancy by wearing the traditional nun's habit. The baby was found dead in her small convent room in a waste basket, asphyxiated.
The police found ticket stubs and other information in the nun's convent room indicating that precisely nine months earlier she had traveled out of state to an educational conference. While during the trial, the father of the baby was never named, it was never suggested that the nun had been raped by a priest.
At her trial, Sister Maureen waived her right to a jury, and Judge Hyman Maas, a Jew, presided. There was a great deal of controversy about whether a Jewish judge would give a Catholic nun a fair trial. The trial was over in ten days, and Maas found the nun not guity of all charges by reason of insanity in March 1977.
The convent where the murder occurred is adjacent to the still-functioning suburban parish and school. The girl's high school, St. Agnes, where some of the nuns taught, is closed.
Original Broadway Production
The play opened on Broadway March 30th, 1982 at the Music Box Theatre. The original cast was Elizabeth Ashley as Dr. Livingstone, Geraldine Page as Mother Miriam Ruth and Amanda Plummer as Agnes. During the run the role of Dr. Livingstone was assumed by Diahann Carroll and the role of Agnes by Carrie Fisher.
Lee Remick played the psychiatrist in the show's pre-Broadway run in Boston and was advertised for the New York run but left the show prior to the New York opening.
Other Productions
The National Tour starred Ashley and Mercedes McCambridge. There was also a summer stock production starring Sandy Dennis and Peggy Cass and a London production starring Susannah York and Honor Blackman.
References
- Keegan Theatre
- Agnes of God, ISBN 978-0573630224
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