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Prodigal Son
'What I admire most is that his plays are beautifully well made, economical, sharp and coherent. He's not a misanthrope, but he's in pursuit of why people behave as badly as they do along with having a great compassion for them. That's an unusual and interesting combination.'—Tony Kushner, on John Patrick ShanleyWhen a troubled but gifted boy from the South Bronx finds himself shipped off to a private school in New Hampshire, the adjustment to the alien environment will lead to his ultimate dissolution or redemption. Teachers in the affluent institution do not know what to make of the new boisterous student, though the challenge really lies in his self-perception. Like his most celebrated play, Doubt, the author has based this new work on his own personal experiences of growing up as a teenager in the South Bronx and his time spent at a prep school in New England. Shanley has created an elemental study of a young's man search for his place in the world.John Patrick Shanley's plays include Outside Mullingar, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Savage in Limbo, and Dirty Story, along with his "Church and State" trilogy, Doubt, Defiance, and Storefront Church. For his play Doubt, he received both the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He has nine films to his credit, including the five-time Oscar-nominated Doubt, and Moonstruck, which received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The Writers Guild of America awarded Shanley the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award in Writing.
56 pages, Paperback
First published May 10, 2016
About the author
John Patrick Shanley
52 books139 followersJohn Patrick Shanley was born in The Bronx, New York City, to a telephone operator mother and a meat-packer father. He is a graduate of New York University, and is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre.
For his script for the 1987 film, Moonstruck, Shanley won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
In 1990, Shanley directed his script of Joe Versus the Volcano. Shanley also wrote two songs for the movie: "Marooned Without You" and "The Cowboy Song."
In 2004 Shanley was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame.
In 2005, Shanley's play Doubt: A Parable was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for Best Play. Doubt: A Parable, is featured in The Fourth Wall, a book of photographs by Amy Arbus in which Shanley also wrote the foreword.
In 2008, Shanley directed a film version of Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams.
For his script for the 1987 film, Moonstruck, Shanley won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
In 1990, Shanley directed his script of Joe Versus the Volcano. Shanley also wrote two songs for the movie: "Marooned Without You" and "The Cowboy Song."
In 2004 Shanley was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame.
In 2005, Shanley's play Doubt: A Parable was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for Best Play. Doubt: A Parable, is featured in The Fourth Wall, a book of photographs by Amy Arbus in which Shanley also wrote the foreword.
In 2008, Shanley directed a film version of Doubt starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
April 25, 2019
“The only way I know anything about what I am is what I see in other people’s eyes."
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January 27, 2020
April 5, 2021
من مدت‌ها پیش یه مونولوگ از اجرای این دیدم که خیلی همون موقع تأثیرگذار بود برام. الآن هم رفتم نمایش‌نامه‌ش رو خوندم، و واقعاً لذت بردم ازش. منطق جیم و رفرنس‌های ادبی و فلسفی‌ش رو می‌فهمیدم و بنابراین همه‌چی برام با عقل جور در می‌اومد. هرچند مشخصاً ایرادات زیادی می‌شه بهش گرفت، مثل پایان شتاب‌زده‌ش و شخصیت‌پردازی‌ها که گمونم بخاطر کوتاه بودن نمایش‌نامه زیاد خوب نبودن، ولی من دوستش داشتم. احتمالاً چند بار دیگه هم بخونمش.
September 10, 2021
I am cheating here- I was an insider, the brother of Austin in the play and a student at the school. The story is true; the author and protagonist, John Patrick Shanley, is a master of his craft, who recreates something long forgotten but worth remembering- the struggle for ideals in the age of formation in the sublime cauldron of chaos that is the preparatory school experience. The character Jim’s striving to reach the stars is recognized by 3 main characters, Carl, Louise and Hoffman, who while struggling to understand him, are faced with their own flawed natures. I was touched by Shanley’s depiction of the powerful love between Carl & Louise which plays a pivotal role in the final outcome. Prejudiced as I am admittedly, I found this truthful and compelling rendering to be an great insight into the author’s integrity. The idealistic search for a fulfilled and purposeful life as true as Socrates or even Jesus himself resonates and overcomes the frail nature of man. I can truly say, not just that truth is stranger than fiction, but can also be far nobler and more compelling.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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June 26, 2022“You think everything's coming at you, when what's really happening is everything's coming from you. You're not the devastation. You're the explosion.”
Jim is filled with this insatiable longing to just live deeply and truly and god it’s just really relatable lol.
Alsooooo the quote “do you remember fifteen”…….I just really like that because I hope that when I am older I have compassion for my younger self. I hope I remember that everything I feel now matters a ton and even tho it might not matter to me in 20 years, that doesn’t dim the importance of those feelings.
I’ve wanted to read this play for like a year now and I’m so happy I did because it’s so good. I’ve read parts of it but never the full script before. I love how it’s short and straightforward while not lacking in depth. Side note….it took me about 50 years to find an actual free pdf to read of this thing like come onnnnn
Jim is filled with this insatiable longing to just live deeply and truly and god it’s just really relatable lol.
Alsooooo the quote “do you remember fifteen”…….I just really like that because I hope that when I am older I have compassion for my younger self. I hope I remember that everything I feel now matters a ton and even tho it might not matter to me in 20 years, that doesn’t dim the importance of those feelings.
I’ve wanted to read this play for like a year now and I’m so happy I did because it’s so good. I’ve read parts of it but never the full script before. I love how it’s short and straightforward while not lacking in depth. Side note….it took me about 50 years to find an actual free pdf to read of this thing like come onnnnn
May 23, 2021
Somewhat shockingly disappointing, from someone whose plays I generally enjoy - even with Timothée Chalamet in the lead off Broadway, this got rather scathing reviews. Purportedly based upon the playwright's own experiences in a private high school, the scenes plod along with very little momentum or point. And the ending is just a mess.
December 30, 2023
“But everybody talks to me like I’m the one. I should change. Why should I change? I’ve never even gotten to find out who I am and you want me to change? That’s crazy! You tell me I’m bad before I even get to be anything. What the hell is that? Original sin or something?”
Welp, this was a treat.
John Patrick Shanley writes, in Prodigal Son, almost autobiographically, about a misfit student, Jim Quinn, who tries to find his way in academia during the War.
I discovered this play from an Instagram reel which showed a clip of Timothee Chalamet delivering the cathartic monologue in a 2016 theatrical.
As a student who literally begged my parents on my knees to let me do Humanities, I really connected with the main character. High school has given me the worst, god-awful years of my life. In a condensed environment where your perspective is considered shit and art is merely a “medium” only, and everyone expects the best out of you or nothing, one can only combust into flames.
Obviously, there are tons of people with similar stories out there, but this particularly touched me a lot. It’s sad that we still have to go through it.
“You think everything’s coming at you, when what’s really happening is everything’s coming from you. You’re not the devastation. You’re the explosion.”
Short but striking and sharp.
★ ★ ★ ★ .5 /5
Highly recommend this to lovers of Dead Poets Society <3
⊹ . ⋆ ☽ ⋆ . ➶
Welp, this was a treat.
John Patrick Shanley writes, in Prodigal Son, almost autobiographically, about a misfit student, Jim Quinn, who tries to find his way in academia during the War.
I discovered this play from an Instagram reel which showed a clip of Timothee Chalamet delivering the cathartic monologue in a 2016 theatrical.
As a student who literally begged my parents on my knees to let me do Humanities, I really connected with the main character. High school has given me the worst, god-awful years of my life. In a condensed environment where your perspective is considered shit and art is merely a “medium” only, and everyone expects the best out of you or nothing, one can only combust into flames.
Obviously, there are tons of people with similar stories out there, but this particularly touched me a lot. It’s sad that we still have to go through it.
“You think everything’s coming at you, when what’s really happening is everything’s coming from you. You’re not the devastation. You’re the explosion.”
Short but striking and sharp.
★ ★ ★ ★ .5 /5
Highly recommend this to lovers of Dead Poets Society <3
⊹ . ⋆ ☽ ⋆ . ➶
November 16, 2020
This was a very small play (unexpectedly for some reason?).
I'd seen footage of Timothée Chalamet performing a monologue from it and so it's been in the back of my head. Feels strange that this was written in 2016? However these kind of Discourses on teaching and the power of the written word I find fascinating. The main character feels like such a classic enigma child though which was a bit of a throw off. Would love to see it live.
“Teachers don’t tell you what they tell you in books. Charles Dickens tells you everything. Henry Miller tells you everything. Teachers tell you about other people, never themselves. You teach Religion, but I don’t know anything about religion from you. I’ve never seen your soul. I’ve never met your God.”
I'd seen footage of Timothée Chalamet performing a monologue from it and so it's been in the back of my head. Feels strange that this was written in 2016? However these kind of Discourses on teaching and the power of the written word I find fascinating. The main character feels like such a classic enigma child though which was a bit of a throw off. Would love to see it live.
“Teachers don’t tell you what they tell you in books. Charles Dickens tells you everything. Henry Miller tells you everything. Teachers tell you about other people, never themselves. You teach Religion, but I don’t know anything about religion from you. I’ve never seen your soul. I’ve never met your God.”
November 2, 2021
• “First you need to think I’m good, then I’m good”
• “The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes”
This is a play that follows a ‘troubled’ boy, Jim, and his relationship to self, religion, literature, and authority. I really enjoyed how this play explored the importance of young people having an older person see the good in them without having to prove themselves. I also liked that none of the characters were black and white - they all had ‘something’. Only took about an hour to read :) worth my time, I think.
• “The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes”
This is a play that follows a ‘troubled’ boy, Jim, and his relationship to self, religion, literature, and authority. I really enjoyed how this play explored the importance of young people having an older person see the good in them without having to prove themselves. I also liked that none of the characters were black and white - they all had ‘something’. Only took about an hour to read :) worth my time, I think.
March 14, 2022
Read while laying in the sun on a blanket in my backyard and cried a little bit. beautiful 😭 wish I could've seen this real time. So many deep & mysterious connections to it - I wonder what it'll all lead to / why God put it in me. Love to think of all the things that led to & connect to this - like east of eden & little women & weeding at the farm in Tim & Kathy's backyard. Dream work! Glad I came across the James Quinn (timmy) speech on YouTube at the time I did bc it led to this. Pensando en mi estudiante BB right now. May he encounter more people like these characters immediately 🖤
"How do you educate a boy like that?"
"Love."
"How do you educate a boy like that?"
"Love."
January 16, 2019
A cathartic read-
June 30, 2025
You will never read a script more reflective of yourself, I cried and I’ve cried so much over it. I’m being serious. Read it for yourself.
November 16, 2024
What is it: a memoir in montage of three teachers.
----
Why 4 stars: I should keep this review focused on the play and on John Patrick Shanley (who clarifies in the introduction that the play is effectively autobiographical, based on memories of a couple years crucial to his own education, from which he hasn't even thought it necessary to change names or alter circumstances). There's some interesting stuff to talk about, the structure being a montage of small scenes without an act structure, the way certain key interstitial scenes don't need any dialogue to communicate exactly what the audience needs, the way a seemingly autobiographical play ends up actually being more focused on the three teachers important in those years with his own concerns more an inciting incident for different crises in those three teachers' lives.
But I think I actually want to selfishly take the opportunity to comment on my own education. I find it fascinating that Shanley's crisis in those years was trying to understand who he was and why he did what he did--a feeling of no free will, of directionless compulsion, of depending on outside perspectives from the people around him to convince him of who he was. In my high school and college years, I think I found in classrooms exactly the space where I felt my will was most my own, where I trusted myself without needing external opinions. And I say that having spent those years deeply attentive to what other people thought of me or treated me outside the classroom; the contrast between educational spaces and the rest of my life was stark, to me at least, internally.
And fascinating too that Shanley raises his voice against a teacher to say that he doesn't learn from them but instead from the authors they read together. There's an intuition in what he's describing--that teachers don't teach from personal experience and instead only point at others who are communicating from their personal experience, so we learn from those others instead of from teachers. But, maybe because I was raised by two teachers, or maybe because of the specific teachers I had, I think I valued deeply that teachers teach by curation. That the choice of who and what to teach mattered to me because it showed me who and what mattered to them. It's learning indirectly, sure, but no less valuable than the direct learning from encounter with a text. And the indirect learning can shift to direct learning in moments when a teacher does actually speak from their own experience. I can think of several teachers who didn't hide behind a curriculum but were honest from the start of a course that we'd be working together through themes that they cared about for reasons that mattered in their lives. That, more than any encounter with a single book, shaped how I encounter any book.
And fascinating to hear Shanley say of a teacher that "somebody decided I was good before I was good." It's a phrase that resonates because Shanley means it in two ways. There's the "good" that would typically matter in an academic context--that Shanley is intelligent, a gifted reader, deep in his understanding, eager in his curiosity, far ahead of his age in comprehension; he's "good" at reading. But it's also the "good" that matters for the rest of life outside the academic context--here, the word bringing a tension given that we've seen Shanley lie, steal, and attack other students; he's not "good" yet, but his teachers recognize why that is and what might lead him to change.
The "good" they see in Shanley is the moral good evidenced not presently in his actions but eventually as the expected consequence of his care about human nature, about right and wrong, about his own will. They see a good not in why he does what he does but in why he reads what he reads and writes what he writes.
I would hope, in my own life, that why I read and why I write would be evidence of a good that isn't always otherwise evidenced. And I know that why I read and why I write were powerfully shaped by my teachers, by learning why they read and why they write, and by learning who they thought I was and who they thought I could be.
So, thank you to my teachers, not only for deciding I was good but for teaching me what good is by the ways they lived that same good.
----
You might also like: I'm supposed to say Dead Poets Society because its about learning why to read and because Robert Sean Leonard played Neil in that film and played Mr. Hoffman in the premier production of Prodigal Son. But I'm torn, because I've somewhat fallen out of love with that movie, in particular its glorification of suicide. So, take it as a wary recommendation, relevant but not perfect.
----
Why 4 stars: I should keep this review focused on the play and on John Patrick Shanley (who clarifies in the introduction that the play is effectively autobiographical, based on memories of a couple years crucial to his own education, from which he hasn't even thought it necessary to change names or alter circumstances). There's some interesting stuff to talk about, the structure being a montage of small scenes without an act structure, the way certain key interstitial scenes don't need any dialogue to communicate exactly what the audience needs, the way a seemingly autobiographical play ends up actually being more focused on the three teachers important in those years with his own concerns more an inciting incident for different crises in those three teachers' lives.
But I think I actually want to selfishly take the opportunity to comment on my own education. I find it fascinating that Shanley's crisis in those years was trying to understand who he was and why he did what he did--a feeling of no free will, of directionless compulsion, of depending on outside perspectives from the people around him to convince him of who he was. In my high school and college years, I think I found in classrooms exactly the space where I felt my will was most my own, where I trusted myself without needing external opinions. And I say that having spent those years deeply attentive to what other people thought of me or treated me outside the classroom; the contrast between educational spaces and the rest of my life was stark, to me at least, internally.
And fascinating too that Shanley raises his voice against a teacher to say that he doesn't learn from them but instead from the authors they read together. There's an intuition in what he's describing--that teachers don't teach from personal experience and instead only point at others who are communicating from their personal experience, so we learn from those others instead of from teachers. But, maybe because I was raised by two teachers, or maybe because of the specific teachers I had, I think I valued deeply that teachers teach by curation. That the choice of who and what to teach mattered to me because it showed me who and what mattered to them. It's learning indirectly, sure, but no less valuable than the direct learning from encounter with a text. And the indirect learning can shift to direct learning in moments when a teacher does actually speak from their own experience. I can think of several teachers who didn't hide behind a curriculum but were honest from the start of a course that we'd be working together through themes that they cared about for reasons that mattered in their lives. That, more than any encounter with a single book, shaped how I encounter any book.
And fascinating to hear Shanley say of a teacher that "somebody decided I was good before I was good." It's a phrase that resonates because Shanley means it in two ways. There's the "good" that would typically matter in an academic context--that Shanley is intelligent, a gifted reader, deep in his understanding, eager in his curiosity, far ahead of his age in comprehension; he's "good" at reading. But it's also the "good" that matters for the rest of life outside the academic context--here, the word bringing a tension given that we've seen Shanley lie, steal, and attack other students; he's not "good" yet, but his teachers recognize why that is and what might lead him to change.
The "good" they see in Shanley is the moral good evidenced not presently in his actions but eventually as the expected consequence of his care about human nature, about right and wrong, about his own will. They see a good not in why he does what he does but in why he reads what he reads and writes what he writes.
I would hope, in my own life, that why I read and why I write would be evidence of a good that isn't always otherwise evidenced. And I know that why I read and why I write were powerfully shaped by my teachers, by learning why they read and why they write, and by learning who they thought I was and who they thought I could be.
So, thank you to my teachers, not only for deciding I was good but for teaching me what good is by the ways they lived that same good.
----
You might also like: I'm supposed to say Dead Poets Society because its about learning why to read and because Robert Sean Leonard played Neil in that film and played Mr. Hoffman in the premier production of Prodigal Son. But I'm torn, because I've somewhat fallen out of love with that movie, in particular its glorification of suicide. So, take it as a wary recommendation, relevant but not perfect.
Read
March 12, 2026“I wish you could have been there.” Esta obra como testimonio desbordado de la bifurcación, del precipicio entre la destrucción y salvación desde la juventud y su delirio total. De algún modo me recordó a cuando tenía dieciséis y quería pensar que sería como el Che y que cambiaría el mundo y tal vez todavía pueda. “The future’s more beautiful than now.” También es un diálogo entre el dolor y la esperanza, como cargamos con fantasmas que advierten que el perdón, apenas el perdón… Quizás ahí esté, ahí se encuentre la redención, en la mirada compasiva al otro a través de la cual nos reflejamos y permitimos vernos bien y completos y verdaderos. “It’s a prison to think things are impossible.” Me gustó el final y la magia de los coros como un escenario griego de lágrimas pero también un pedestal o mejor un altar que salva, que nos salva.
July 9, 2025
While this is (maybe appropriately?) a little self-indulgent, I still found it to be a compelling work. The kid-prodigy at a prep school is not uncommon ground, but he handles it here with some sensitivity and empathy. Appropriately devastating- as Shanley so often is- but oddly hopeful in the end.
Read
March 9, 2026The writing had a very clear and poetic tone to it. Understood Jim Quinn to the very core. Only critique is the ending, a little jarring and the play would’ve benefited from a couple more scenes in between to elucidate the purpose of the ending
November 20, 2024
جميلة و في حالة انكشاف بتحصل في الآخر كده اتلمحلها كذا مرة بطريقة ذكية خلال المسرحية تخلي الواحد يندهش لما يشوف النهاية. المفروض إني هخرج المسرحية دي في الـTheater season... استعنا عالشقا بالله
March 18, 2025
Need to discuss this with someone aaaaaaa
May 11, 2025
i was not ready for those plot twist. damn. atleast i know the context of my fav monologue 🤷♀️
March 19, 2023
A rather predictable play about a delinquent teen on a scholarship at a Catholic boarding school during the 1960s. I'm surprised this was published by TCG.
March 7, 2026
i was reading this in the tech booth and hadn’t quite followed the undertones and was very very shocked when he leant in to kiss him oops
“joke!” in a new hampshire accent has become part of my day to day vocabulary
“joke!” in a new hampshire accent has become part of my day to day vocabulary
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2023
A hobby of mine is to come up with alternative titles for the books and plays i’ve read. What it could be called that would express the content better. But for the life of me i could not come up with a better title for this play. It feels like it was written in the fates or something.
The story is fascinating. It left me speechless and i love how efficient and quick the dialogue and topics are. No one dwells on a topic for so long it feels stretched out. The writing is beautiful.
I am the master of fate but i’ve always found it hard to believe it. I find a lot of myself in James and his ideologies and it reminds me of this poem, “A lost son is called prodigal /A lost daughter is just called lost.” The harder I try to be the captain of my soul the harder the universe pushes me off my pedestal. I try to be a romantic but it never works out. I try to find my purpose but it stays lost. I try to find out if character is destiny and it goes over my head. I wonder if I am doomed to the person I was born with and I have never reached a conclusion. James’ impatience and (i don’t know a better word for it but) urgency to know himself resonates within me so deeply it took me a moment to regain myself after reading -
“JIM: The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes.”
“JIM: Please, Alan. Tell me what I am.”
Something that really struck me was the description of his loneliness-
“JIM: Shut up. “Adam, standing buck naked and stock still, / Listened quietly to the dew as it settled. He stood chilly, and damp, and quite alone. A half of a man with a fiery, aching rib.”
AUSTIN: That’s it?
JIM: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That’s Adam from the Bible, right?
JIM: Yeah. It’s about loneliness. He’s the only person in the world. Everything’s good, but he’s the only person in the world.
AUSTIN: Is it about you?
JIM: I don’t know.
AUSTIN: I’ll tell you right out. I’m not embarrassed. I miss my mom.
JIM: But when you’re with your mom, are you still lonely then?
AUSTIN: No, why would I be? I’m with her.
JIM: Right. What about the other loneliness?
AUSTIN: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
JIM: When you’re home with your family, don’t you get lonely then, too?”
He’s visceral and real and in your face about his imbalance.
What I expected and was yet surprised by was what Hoffman was. The contrast of it with what Schmitt did was fascinating in the way that it shows the flaw in how we see people.
Schmitt is not someone we would call an ethically bad person but Jim’s view of him is that of a horrible sadist meanwhile he views Hoffman like an angel who saved him (which he did, despite his intentions).
This proves that when Jim said “JIM: The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes.” It applies not only to him but to everyone else!
Schmitt believed that what he did was irredeemable. That he did not deserve to be forgiven and so he became the monster (or acted like one). Hoffman only saw love and admiration in the eyes of his students and so he became the angel.
“This school has been a miracle for me, but not because of you. Because somebody, Mr. Hoffman, finally saw me. And more than that. Somebody, a grown person, decided I was good before I was good“
Not just Jim but Schmitt too needed someone to believe he was good before he believed it himself. For him it was his wife. For Jim, it was Hoffman.
4stars because what the fuck was that weird nazi metaphor. Use LITERALLY anything else. And I guess the end did really prove Jim and his ideas wrong. About the whole “Character is destiny” meaning that his entire fucked up theory about it was wrong but still. WHY.
The story is fascinating. It left me speechless and i love how efficient and quick the dialogue and topics are. No one dwells on a topic for so long it feels stretched out. The writing is beautiful.
I am the master of fate but i’ve always found it hard to believe it. I find a lot of myself in James and his ideologies and it reminds me of this poem, “A lost son is called prodigal /A lost daughter is just called lost.” The harder I try to be the captain of my soul the harder the universe pushes me off my pedestal. I try to be a romantic but it never works out. I try to find my purpose but it stays lost. I try to find out if character is destiny and it goes over my head. I wonder if I am doomed to the person I was born with and I have never reached a conclusion. James’ impatience and (i don’t know a better word for it but) urgency to know himself resonates within me so deeply it took me a moment to regain myself after reading -
“JIM: The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes.”
“JIM: Please, Alan. Tell me what I am.”
Something that really struck me was the description of his loneliness-
“JIM: Shut up. “Adam, standing buck naked and stock still, / Listened quietly to the dew as it settled. He stood chilly, and damp, and quite alone. A half of a man with a fiery, aching rib.”
AUSTIN: That’s it?
JIM: Yeah.
AUSTIN: That’s Adam from the Bible, right?
JIM: Yeah. It’s about loneliness. He’s the only person in the world. Everything’s good, but he’s the only person in the world.
AUSTIN: Is it about you?
JIM: I don’t know.
AUSTIN: I’ll tell you right out. I’m not embarrassed. I miss my mom.
JIM: But when you’re with your mom, are you still lonely then?
AUSTIN: No, why would I be? I’m with her.
JIM: Right. What about the other loneliness?
AUSTIN: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
JIM: When you’re home with your family, don’t you get lonely then, too?”
He’s visceral and real and in your face about his imbalance.
What I expected and was yet surprised by was what Hoffman was. The contrast of it with what Schmitt did was fascinating in the way that it shows the flaw in how we see people.
Schmitt is not someone we would call an ethically bad person but Jim’s view of him is that of a horrible sadist meanwhile he views Hoffman like an angel who saved him (which he did, despite his intentions).
This proves that when Jim said “JIM: The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes.” It applies not only to him but to everyone else!
Schmitt believed that what he did was irredeemable. That he did not deserve to be forgiven and so he became the monster (or acted like one). Hoffman only saw love and admiration in the eyes of his students and so he became the angel.
“This school has been a miracle for me, but not because of you. Because somebody, Mr. Hoffman, finally saw me. And more than that. Somebody, a grown person, decided I was good before I was good“
Not just Jim but Schmitt too needed someone to believe he was good before he believed it himself. For him it was his wife. For Jim, it was Hoffman.
4stars because what the fuck was that weird nazi metaphor. Use LITERALLY anything else. And I guess the end did really prove Jim and his ideas wrong. About the whole “Character is destiny” meaning that his entire fucked up theory about it was wrong but still. WHY.
September 16, 2026
“I always had a book. I was fifteen. Do you remember fifteen? For me, it was a special, beautiful room in Hell.”
4’5⭐️ Lots of teenagers would enjoy this, I think. It captures the dread teenagers feel in a very authentic way. A strange mix between The Catcher in the Rye, The Holdovers, and, kind of, Dead Poets Society.
Poetry as escapism, philosophy, a troubled youth. The helplessness of teenagers in front of adults, and the hopelessness this brings.
“He’s using poetry like a ladder to climb out of some terrible place.”
“Why am I always in the wrong? Why do I have to listen to you when you have zero to say? Because I’m young? All my life I’ve been young. So I never get a turn? This school is lost, if you ask me. You’re lost. But everybody talks to me like I’m the one. I should change. Why should I change? I’ve never even gotten to find out who I am and you want me to change? That’s crazy! You tell me I’m bad before I even get to be anything. What the hell is that? Original sin or something? I read Plato. I read him on a park bench in the Bronx and let me tell you something. Plato wasn’t afraid. Diogenes wasn’t afraid. Socrates wasn’t afraid of anything. They were men. Why are you the headmaster and I’m the student? Do you understand? I have to earn your respect but you don’t have to earn mine? What is that? It’s you that wants the A before you even start. But when I say I want the same thing, I’m nuts, right? I’m not going to cry. I’m going to find my place in this world. Count on it. This school has been a miracle for me, but not because of you. Because somebody, Mr. Hoffman, finally saw me. And more than that. Somebody, a grown person, decided I was good before I was good. You want to throw me out of that? Then you know what I say: I’ve never met your God and I don’t want to.”
“I can’t picture you old.”
“I can’t picture me right now. Maybe I’m going crazy.”
“You are not.”
“Everything I do, I don’t know why I do it. I’m like a robot. I don’t know why I took that bell. Do you feel like you’re missing everything?”
“About whether or not I graduate. You are making me who I am right now. Right now.”
“My only fear of death is that I’ll be separated from Louise. What good would Heaven be without her?”
“What a wonderful thing, to feel like that about someone.”
“I like things I haven’t thought of.”
“You need to wake up.”
“To what?”
“Your own worth.”
“I see how the questions could have a lot of different answers, and the answer choices never seem to include something I can completely agree with so it makes me feel like something is wrong.”
“The German drew back his knife. He saw the Jew Man’s strife. He asked, Where is your God now, Jew? The Jew replied, He’s in your knife, which is about to run me through.”
“I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.”
“That another poem?”
“Not by me. I wish I felt like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I was the master of my fate.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d smoke. I’d drink. I’d hitchhike all over the country. Catch fish, eat corn from the cornfields, write poems like Walt Whitman just naming everything. And I’d punch anybody who bothered me. Pow! Right in the face. I’d fight in wars and say everything that came into my head. I’d travel through time, too, and meet all the geniuses. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Yeah, it’s impossible though.”
“It’s a prison to think things are impossible.”
“She never moved in a way that wasn’t worth watching. I could watch her all day.”
“The way people see things is so stupid. It’s a jail and I want out. I want to bust out.”
“I knew what would happen if I walked her home.”
“What?”
“It would be, you know . . . It wouldn’t be what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“A big situation. A staircase.”
“Teachers don’t tell you what they tell you in books. Charles Dickens tells you everything. Henry Miller tells you everything. Teachers tell you about other people, never themselves. You teach Religion, but I don’t know anything about religion from you. I’ve never seen your soul. I’ve never met your God.”
“I think a poem that won’t be good in a hundred years, isn’t good now.”
“Well, the thought came into my head to say I didn’t believe in God, and I thought, “Who put that thought there?” And I thought it was probably God, you know?”
“What if it was the Other Guy?”
“I don’t think so. I feel like the Devil would want me to be lazy, and God would want me to speak.”
“If I’m put on the spot to tell the truth, the truth needs to be good. Heroes tell the truth because they have something great to say, and once they say it, who cares? It’s okay to die. That’s why they can face down death.”
“I need to have changed.”
“You have.”
“I’ve got to be out of this part of my life.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s awful.”
“She never comes down the stairs. Never. Or I’m not ready for her to come down the stairs. I’m a beggar in the dark. Lights out.”
“How can you forgive me?”
“Please. In the name of God. Let me forgive you.”
“Lord Byron. (Touches his breast) He was saying there’s a sword here, and it’s going to wear away everything else. I feel that.”
“Come on. Jim, you’re a teenager.”
“What does that mean?”
“It isn’t going to stay like this.”
“You know that?”
“Of course.”
“So all these years, sixteen years, it’s okay if they’re wasted?”
“The Nazis were crazy, but they didn’t know it. They thought they’d figured it all out. It takes the victim to school the killer on what’s what. The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes.”
“Greatness goes by many names. I call him Rafael Sabatini.”
“Who?”
“‘I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad.’”
“Adam, standing buck naked and stock still, / Listened quietly to the dew as it settled. He stood chilly, and damp, and quite alone. A half of a man with a fiery, aching rib.”
“People are born somebody. They don’t choose who they are. I was born me. I don’t get to be somebody else, even if I want to be somebody else.”
“Do you want to be somebody else?”
“What’s it matter? I can’t be. I’m Jim Quinn. I was born Jim Quinn and I’ll die Jim Quinn.”
“But you have a free will.”
“But the free will I have is mine because I’m me. The choices I make I make because I’m Jim Quinn. And that I didn’t choose. Personality is everything really. I think.”
“I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. I can’t be myself yet.”
“I want to be great. I do. I want to be a great man.”
“Then you will be.”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to try. Otherwise, why was I even born?”
“Whenever she sat down, she folded her hands on one knee. Like this. I’d wait for her to do it. It was so cool. The folded hands. It was like she was a queen on her day off. I used to think about her and say her name when I was alone. Maria Mazzola.”
“Morality is everybody together. I don’t know much, but I know that.”
“Why have you found them so interesting?”
“They’re just the perfect enemy.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Yes. It’s clear. They’re bad.”
“They make you answer them.”
“What’s that?”
“When they say they’re Nazis, you have to say who you are.”
“Socrates, Jesus, Thomas More, all those stories are the same. Why should you help the killers kill you? Why even give the truth to second-rate people who don’t deserve it?”
“Socrates prepared for death his whole life. That’s why he was good at it.”
“Do you do that?”
“I try.”
“I don’t. No, I do actually. I’m always facing the Nazis. And if I tell them the truth, they’ll kill me.”
“So what do you do?”
“So far, I just face them. I open the door and they’re there, staring at me. And I think: “Am I going to tell them the truth and be destroyed?”
“Tell me about me. Please.”
“You just want me on your side. You think everything’s coming at you, when what’s really happening is everything’s coming from you. You’re not the devastation. You’re the explosion.”
“What do you read?”
“I don’t know. All kinds of stuff. Amazing things. Everything.”
“Why?”
“Because I love it. Because the dead tell me everything.”
“Everything that ever happened is still happening.”
“How do any of us survive?”
“Love.”
“Everything will wear away but this, my sword.”
“T. S. Elliot was wrong.”
“The Waste Land is a worthy poem, Jim. Reread it.”
“No. The tree is alive. Life doesn’t die. I’m sixty-four, Mr. Schmitt, and you’re dead, but I have a time machine and I can speak to great people who are gone. That’s the gift I have been given and I thank God for it. We’re all dead or about to be dead or we will never die because the human mind is a leaping spark. I know it! I do worship my ancestors. They’re here right now. They make me understand and hunger for greatness. Still. Still.”
4’5⭐️ Lots of teenagers would enjoy this, I think. It captures the dread teenagers feel in a very authentic way. A strange mix between The Catcher in the Rye, The Holdovers, and, kind of, Dead Poets Society.
Poetry as escapism, philosophy, a troubled youth. The helplessness of teenagers in front of adults, and the hopelessness this brings.
“He’s using poetry like a ladder to climb out of some terrible place.”
“Why am I always in the wrong? Why do I have to listen to you when you have zero to say? Because I’m young? All my life I’ve been young. So I never get a turn? This school is lost, if you ask me. You’re lost. But everybody talks to me like I’m the one. I should change. Why should I change? I’ve never even gotten to find out who I am and you want me to change? That’s crazy! You tell me I’m bad before I even get to be anything. What the hell is that? Original sin or something? I read Plato. I read him on a park bench in the Bronx and let me tell you something. Plato wasn’t afraid. Diogenes wasn’t afraid. Socrates wasn’t afraid of anything. They were men. Why are you the headmaster and I’m the student? Do you understand? I have to earn your respect but you don’t have to earn mine? What is that? It’s you that wants the A before you even start. But when I say I want the same thing, I’m nuts, right? I’m not going to cry. I’m going to find my place in this world. Count on it. This school has been a miracle for me, but not because of you. Because somebody, Mr. Hoffman, finally saw me. And more than that. Somebody, a grown person, decided I was good before I was good. You want to throw me out of that? Then you know what I say: I’ve never met your God and I don’t want to.”
“I can’t picture you old.”
“I can’t picture me right now. Maybe I’m going crazy.”
“You are not.”
“Everything I do, I don’t know why I do it. I’m like a robot. I don’t know why I took that bell. Do you feel like you’re missing everything?”
“About whether or not I graduate. You are making me who I am right now. Right now.”
“My only fear of death is that I’ll be separated from Louise. What good would Heaven be without her?”
“What a wonderful thing, to feel like that about someone.”
“I like things I haven’t thought of.”
“You need to wake up.”
“To what?”
“Your own worth.”
“I see how the questions could have a lot of different answers, and the answer choices never seem to include something I can completely agree with so it makes me feel like something is wrong.”
“The German drew back his knife. He saw the Jew Man’s strife. He asked, Where is your God now, Jew? The Jew replied, He’s in your knife, which is about to run me through.”
“I am the master of my fate, / I am the captain of my soul.”
“That another poem?”
“Not by me. I wish I felt like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I was the master of my fate.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d smoke. I’d drink. I’d hitchhike all over the country. Catch fish, eat corn from the cornfields, write poems like Walt Whitman just naming everything. And I’d punch anybody who bothered me. Pow! Right in the face. I’d fight in wars and say everything that came into my head. I’d travel through time, too, and meet all the geniuses. Wouldn’t that be cool?”
“Yeah, it’s impossible though.”
“It’s a prison to think things are impossible.”
“She never moved in a way that wasn’t worth watching. I could watch her all day.”
“The way people see things is so stupid. It’s a jail and I want out. I want to bust out.”
“I knew what would happen if I walked her home.”
“What?”
“It would be, you know . . . It wouldn’t be what I wanted.”
“What did you want?”
“A big situation. A staircase.”
“Teachers don’t tell you what they tell you in books. Charles Dickens tells you everything. Henry Miller tells you everything. Teachers tell you about other people, never themselves. You teach Religion, but I don’t know anything about religion from you. I’ve never seen your soul. I’ve never met your God.”
“I think a poem that won’t be good in a hundred years, isn’t good now.”
“Well, the thought came into my head to say I didn’t believe in God, and I thought, “Who put that thought there?” And I thought it was probably God, you know?”
“What if it was the Other Guy?”
“I don’t think so. I feel like the Devil would want me to be lazy, and God would want me to speak.”
“If I’m put on the spot to tell the truth, the truth needs to be good. Heroes tell the truth because they have something great to say, and once they say it, who cares? It’s okay to die. That’s why they can face down death.”
“I need to have changed.”
“You have.”
“I’ve got to be out of this part of my life.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s awful.”
“She never comes down the stairs. Never. Or I’m not ready for her to come down the stairs. I’m a beggar in the dark. Lights out.”
“How can you forgive me?”
“Please. In the name of God. Let me forgive you.”
“Lord Byron. (Touches his breast) He was saying there’s a sword here, and it’s going to wear away everything else. I feel that.”
“Come on. Jim, you’re a teenager.”
“What does that mean?”
“It isn’t going to stay like this.”
“You know that?”
“Of course.”
“So all these years, sixteen years, it’s okay if they’re wasted?”
“The Nazis were crazy, but they didn’t know it. They thought they’d figured it all out. It takes the victim to school the killer on what’s what. The only way I know anything about how I am is what I see in other people’s eyes.”
“Greatness goes by many names. I call him Rafael Sabatini.”
“Who?”
“‘I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad.’”
“Adam, standing buck naked and stock still, / Listened quietly to the dew as it settled. He stood chilly, and damp, and quite alone. A half of a man with a fiery, aching rib.”
“People are born somebody. They don’t choose who they are. I was born me. I don’t get to be somebody else, even if I want to be somebody else.”
“Do you want to be somebody else?”
“What’s it matter? I can’t be. I’m Jim Quinn. I was born Jim Quinn and I’ll die Jim Quinn.”
“But you have a free will.”
“But the free will I have is mine because I’m me. The choices I make I make because I’m Jim Quinn. And that I didn’t choose. Personality is everything really. I think.”
“I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. I can’t be myself yet.”
“I want to be great. I do. I want to be a great man.”
“Then you will be.”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to try. Otherwise, why was I even born?”
“Whenever she sat down, she folded her hands on one knee. Like this. I’d wait for her to do it. It was so cool. The folded hands. It was like she was a queen on her day off. I used to think about her and say her name when I was alone. Maria Mazzola.”
“Morality is everybody together. I don’t know much, but I know that.”
“Why have you found them so interesting?”
“They’re just the perfect enemy.”
“I see. That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Yes. It’s clear. They’re bad.”
“They make you answer them.”
“What’s that?”
“When they say they’re Nazis, you have to say who you are.”
“Socrates, Jesus, Thomas More, all those stories are the same. Why should you help the killers kill you? Why even give the truth to second-rate people who don’t deserve it?”
“Socrates prepared for death his whole life. That’s why he was good at it.”
“Do you do that?”
“I try.”
“I don’t. No, I do actually. I’m always facing the Nazis. And if I tell them the truth, they’ll kill me.”
“So what do you do?”
“So far, I just face them. I open the door and they’re there, staring at me. And I think: “Am I going to tell them the truth and be destroyed?”
“Tell me about me. Please.”
“You just want me on your side. You think everything’s coming at you, when what’s really happening is everything’s coming from you. You’re not the devastation. You’re the explosion.”
“What do you read?”
“I don’t know. All kinds of stuff. Amazing things. Everything.”
“Why?”
“Because I love it. Because the dead tell me everything.”
“Everything that ever happened is still happening.”
“How do any of us survive?”
“Love.”
“Everything will wear away but this, my sword.”
“T. S. Elliot was wrong.”
“The Waste Land is a worthy poem, Jim. Reread it.”
“No. The tree is alive. Life doesn’t die. I’m sixty-four, Mr. Schmitt, and you’re dead, but I have a time machine and I can speak to great people who are gone. That’s the gift I have been given and I thank God for it. We’re all dead or about to be dead or we will never die because the human mind is a leaping spark. I know it! I do worship my ancestors. They’re here right now. They make me understand and hunger for greatness. Still. Still.”
March 8, 2021
what a great play ! It was so pleasant to read these dialogues, all the literary and philosophy references were captivating, I was just a bit frustrated by the shortness of this story, I would have loved more material.
otherwise, let me say that I would have died to watch this play live in NYC (off-Broadway) back in 2016 because the cast was epic ! I mean not only the public had the chance to see Timothée Chalamet portraying Jim, a young talented boy from the Bronx in existential crisis , but moreover they saw Robert Sean Leonard as Alan Hoffman, the English teacher : of course I did get a lot of Dead Poets Society vibes (I was thriving) and can we all agree what a brilliant idea it was to give the role of the mentor to Leonard after his brilliant performance of the gifted student Neil Perry in Dead Poets Society ?
I will for sure read more of John Patrick Shanley works !
otherwise, let me say that I would have died to watch this play live in NYC (off-Broadway) back in 2016 because the cast was epic ! I mean not only the public had the chance to see Timothée Chalamet portraying Jim, a young talented boy from the Bronx in existential crisis , but moreover they saw Robert Sean Leonard as Alan Hoffman, the English teacher : of course I did get a lot of Dead Poets Society vibes (I was thriving) and can we all agree what a brilliant idea it was to give the role of the mentor to Leonard after his brilliant performance of the gifted student Neil Perry in Dead Poets Society ?
I will for sure read more of John Patrick Shanley works !
March 4, 2020
Boy do I feel for the prodigal son. What keeps me coming back to Shanley is his unabashed love for literary and philosophical references and making them a part of the dialogue of the story. His characters, and I would suppose, Shanley, himself are thinkers...and so not only do we get these brilliantly crafted characters like Jim, Mr. Hoffman (even the tiny role of Austin!), etc, but we also get to hear them wrestle with the words of the dead. Since the play is set in a school, this kind of talk feels even more natural. But boy, Jim, do I feel for you buddy.
July 25, 2021
I've read this one a few times now. I come back to it every year, and it always feels so brand new. The same scenes I've read over and over already...feel like completely new ideas. I definitely feel like it's a story you can relate to at any point in life.
Jim's overactive mind feels like a curse to him, even though it's his biggest strength. His nonstop curiosity and lack of fear of authority make him an undeniable opinion in any room he's in -- it's admirable.
I'm excited to read it again next year.
Jim's overactive mind feels like a curse to him, even though it's his biggest strength. His nonstop curiosity and lack of fear of authority make him an undeniable opinion in any room he's in -- it's admirable.
I'm excited to read it again next year.
March 10, 2021
4.5 stars! i love plays because they satisfy the poetic craving within me. in this play the character of Jim Quinn was poetry, the way he spoke, who he was, reminded me of myself, in the place i'm in right now. this play was honest and i felt comforted as Jim shared his life with me.
also timothee chalamet starred in the first production of this (this may or may not be the reason i initially picked this up).
also timothee chalamet starred in the first production of this (this may or may not be the reason i initially picked this up).
March 31, 2018
I had to read this play twice to fully understand it all, very dense. I found JPS mostly autobiographical play bittersweet and with all his play, challenging. John has a fantastic way of weaving morality within his works. I appreciate having to grapple with the story and the ambiguity As if I was also a player on stage.
November 27, 2020
3.5
So much I now want to read from this. Every time a poet or book was mentioned, now I must read it. I liked this a lot, tho I found it lost it's flow at certain points, but I'd like to watch the play first before solidifying my opinion.
So much I now want to read from this. Every time a poet or book was mentioned, now I must read it. I liked this a lot, tho I found it lost it's flow at certain points, but I'd like to watch the play first before solidifying my opinion.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews