Abstract

The play Nuns is about Abby, a new student at Concordia University living in the Grey Nuns residence building. The play focuses on Abbys conflicted relationship with her own identity, and her mother. Despite a budding romantic relationship with a girl named Kaeli, she chooses to date a boy named Andrew to avoid acknowledging her own sexual identity. Her rejection of her identity allows her to fit within the role that her mother expects of her. On Halloween Abby’s avoidance of her sexuality comes to a head during a Ouija board game. The game opens the veil and allows one of the previous Nuns, Margaret, to begin haunting Abby as a means of guiding her to accept her identity.
The play focuses on themes of identity, family, freedom and gender roles. Abby is motivated to maintain a positive relationship with her Christian mom through fear. She worries that by accepting her identity as a gay woman, her relationship with her mother will fail. On the other hand, she struggles with avoiding her very real feelings for Kaeli, the object of her desire, who continues to intrude into the fantasy relationship she has created with Andrew. Despite the expectations of her parents, she will eventually accept her identity and reject the lifestyle that she has been expected to follow. As such, the text also grapples with ideas of found family, and connection.