Miss Witherspoon - Christopher Durang

Christopher Durang is an American playwright and actor. He was born on January 2, 1949 in Montclair, New Jersey to Patricia Elizabeth and Francis Ferdinand Durang, Jr.  He attended Catholic schools as a child. He later attended Harvard where he received his B.A. in English and later went to the Yale School of Drama for his M.F.A. in playwriting.

While attending Yale, Christopher Durang had many plays presented at the school, especially in the Yale Cabaret. He co-authored and performed with fellow student Albert Innaruto in two cabaret pieces, I Don’t Generally Like Poetry But Have You Read “Trees”? and The Life Story of Mitzi Gaynor.

He is known for outrageous and absurd comedies that often deal with the Roman Catholic dogma, child abuse, and homosexuality.

His most recent works include Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them,  Miss Witherspoon at Playwrights Horizons, Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge, which premiered at City Theatre in Pittsburgh in 2002, and the musical Adrift in Macao (music by Peter Melnick and book and lyrics by Durang), which opened at the Philadelphia Theatre Company October 2005.

Other credits include the following: A History of the American Film, which received a Tony nomination for best book of a musical in 1978, The Actor's Nightmare, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You which ran Off-Broadway from 1981-83 and won an Obie award, Beyond Therapy which was on Broadway in 1982, Baby with the Bathwater (Playwrights Horizons, 1983), The Marriage of Bette and Boo, which showed at Public Theatre in 1985 and won an Obie award as well as a Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award, Laughing Wild (Playwrights Horizons, 1987), Durang/Durang (an evening of six plays at Manhattan Theatre Club, 1994, including the Tennessee Williams' parody, For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls), Sex and Longing (Lincoln Center Theatre production at the Cort Theatre, 1996, starring Sigourney Weaver), and Betty's Summer Vacation (Playwrights Horizons, 1999; Obie award).

Durang is also a performer who has acted in his own plays (Laughing Wild; The Marriage of Bette and Boo; Chris Durang and Dawne; and with Sigourney Weaver in their acclaimed Brecht-Weill parody, Das Lusitania Songspiel). He has also appeared in films such as The Secret of My Success, Mr. North, The Butcher's Wife, Housesitter and The Cowboy Way, among others. He has been co-chair with Marsha Norman of the Playwriting Program at the Juilliard School in Manhattan since 1994.

Miss Witherspoon was one of the three finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It premiered off Broadway at Playwrights Horizon in association with McCarter Theater on September 9, 2005.

Miss Witherspoon presents Christopher Durang’s common themes of child abuse and the Roman Catholic Dogma. Religious morals and lessons line the entire play as Veronica carries out her different reincarnated lives. 

The play follows Veronica, who’s depressing, jaded, suicidal views on life continue to lead her to destruction. She repeatedly states that she wants nothing more than to never feel, think or see anything ever again. She wants blackness, darkness, and emptiness. She wants nothing to do with an afterlife; she simply wishes to be turned off permanently. The only reincarnation she enjoys is when she is reincarnated as a dog. It is being amongst humanity that she hates most.

Maryamma, Veronica’s spirit guide, continually tries to teach Veronica lessons about the afterlife. Maryamma almost stands as the Catholic Holy Spirit, with Gandalf as the Holy Father, and the Black Woman as the Son. Veronica struggles with the idea of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and continues to fight Christian ideas.

The story of Ginny uses the Sleazy Man that sells her drugs at the playground as an image of Satan and temptation. The first time Ginny comes to him, she gives into the temptation and committs suicide, whereas the second time (which is unclear whether it is in a dream or in reality) she turns to the Jesus-like figure, the Teacher, and turns her life around.

Each life is a lesson to be learned, yet Veronica’s stubborn, murky aura does not allow her to learn from any of this. One of the strongest life lessons is when she returns as a dog and is then killed by the son of Mother 1.  This turning point leads to the overall cleansing of Veronica’s aura.

1. How was the woman in the chicken suit relevant to the opening scene? Why a chicken suit?
2. What do you think is the meaning of the nursery rhyme “Miss Witherspoon” ?
3. Did the timeline get confusing due to the fact that the story jumps back and forth so often?
4. What is actual reality for Veronica?
5. Why do you think Veronica still relived Ginny’s in her “anesthesia afterlife”, when the whole point of the “anesthesia afterlife” it was to experience complete emptiness- for those who did not believe in the afterlife?
6.  Why do you think that Father 1’s name is David and is also Gandalf at the end of the play?
7. Is the final scene with Veronica as the baby of Mother 1 and Father 1 an actual reincarnation? (Maryamma said she would have the ginger tea for Veronica when she returned, and ginger tea is offered to her parents in the final scene, what does this mean?)
8. What is significant about the fact that both the Teacher and Jesus are both represented by black women?