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    Defiance
    Defiance
    Defiance
    Ebook87 pages54 minutes

    Defiance

    By John Patrick Shanley

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    -Second play on 3 part project begun with "Doubt" -"Doubt" has sold over 40,000 copies and was awarded the Pulizter Prize
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTheatre Communications Group
    Release dateJun 1, 2007
    ISBN9781559366250
    Defiance

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      Book preview

      Defiance - John Patrick Shanley

      SCENE 1

      Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, spring 1971. We’re in front of the unseen H&S Company barracks. The Gunney Sergeant, twenty-eight but looks thirty-five, comes out and walks downstage. He surveys the platoon/audience. He’s in sweat-stained utilities, mud-splashed boots, wearing a haversack and shelter half, carrying an M16. He’s disgusted. He doesn’t speak too loudly, not wanting to be overheard by the brass. He’s a lifer from Florida.

      GUNNEY: A marine will be in jail tonight because he asked me a question. I gave him the lawful order to mount up and he asked me, Why? That was the cherry on the cake for me. Eighteen years I have been in the corps and that was the goddamn cherry on the cake. This is the most sorry unsquared-away field exercise I have participated in for the term of my enlistment, gentlemen. (Points) Get up, Conroy! (Reacts to a comment) I don’t care if your leg’s broke. (Another man gets his attention) You got somethin’ to say, Lance Corporal Wiggins? ’Cause I WILL have you put inside the fence. Correctional Custody is doing bookoo business today courtesy of Headquarters & Service Company. Two men so far. And the day ain’t done yet. (Sound of a very distant Lieutenant Colonel makes him look)

      LIEUTENANT COLONEL (Offstage): Standby!

      GUNNEY: Now that’s the goddamn battalion commander, you understand? Get ready to look like marines or I WILL have you busted down to basic insignificant subatomic particles. Stand by.

      (The Gunney Sergeant walks smartly to the side, turns away from us, assumes the parade rest position, legs apart, hands clasped behind. Four offstage Sergeants at different distances cry out in turn:)

      SERGEANT 1 (Offstage): Platoon!

      SERGEANT 2 (Offstage): Platoon!

      SERGEANT 3 (Offstage): Platoon!

      SERGEANT 4 (Offstage): Platoon!

      GUNNEY: Company!

      (A Captain can be heard in the distance:)

      CAPTAIN (Offstage): Battalion!

      GUNNEY AND OFFSTAGE VOICES: ’TENTION!

      (The Gunney Sergeant snaps to attention, saluting. Lieutenant Colonel Morgan Littlefield enters. He’s around fifty, wears the insignia of his rank: the silver oak leaf, on the collar of his slightly sweaty but perfectly starched utilities. He’s from Maryland. He’s tough, intelligent, well educated, private. He returns the Gunney Sergeant’s salute.)

      GUNNEY: All present and accounted for, sir!

      (Littlefield looks over the unseen troops. He comments unfavorably and publicly on one man after another:)

      LITTLEFIELD: You. You’re at attention, Marine. How ’bout getting those feet at a forty-five-degree angle? Unbloused boot. Is that a standard issue T-shirt, Private? I don’t think so. Halfway to a goddamn turtleneck. I see it again, it will cost you. You. With the vomit. Fall out and see the corpsman. (More generally) This company is a disgrace to the Sixth Marines. You are not combat ready. You do not have your shit together. I do not like you. Now hear this. There were two racial incidents during the course of these ten days in the field. I WILL NOT COUNTENANCE RACIAL INCIDENTS IN MY BATTALION! Not in my wigwam! Do you understand? The five marines responsible for these incidents face a general court. They WILL go to jail. We are having an attitude problem, gentlemen. Due to some bad apples. Fully one-third of this battalion is composed of men who have returned from service in Vietnam. I want you to know. I don’t care. It don’t make you special. I don’t care if you don’t know why you’re still in uniform. I don’t care how short you are. You will stand tall or you will pay the price. And as for this racial nonsense, it matters to me not at all if you’re black, white, blue or stupid. You are marines. You are green in the eyes of the corps. And you will meet the standard of the corps. Or get eighty-sixed. Liberty for this weekend is suspended. Company commanders will carry out squadbay inspections followed by junk-on-the-bunk inspections of all barracks on Saturday at sixteen-hundred hours. And then I will be walking through! Troops will be dismissed by company. Gunney!

      GUNNEY: Yes, sir!

      LITTLEFIELD: Get these men to work!

      GUNNEY: Yes, sir!

      (Littlefield strides off. The Gunney Sergeant faces his troops.)

      Fall out!

      (The lights fade.)

      SCENE 2

      The Littlefield home. It’s officers’ housing. We’re in the living room. There’s a foyer off right, and bit of kitchen off left. It’s a clean, generic place made hospitable with flowers and books. At the lights come up, Margaret Littlefield is setting the coffee table for tea. The tea set is warm and personal. Margaret, in her early forties, wears a sundress. She’s attractive, from a good Florida family. A wall

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