PERPETUALLY QUESTIONING AUTHORITY.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Writer

Somewhere in the midst of his two-year stint in the United States Marine Corps, Pvt. John Patrick Shanley informed the executive officer of his battalion of a conscientious objection -- to driving school.

``I said that cars were polluters and killers,'' says Shanley. ``He said, `What are you doing in this Marine Corps?' I said, `I have to be here, but I have a conscientious objection to driving.' He was so taken aback that he granted it.''

A dime-store shrink might read much into the military exploits of the man who would go on to write a play called ``Defiance.'' Perhaps Shanley -- who enlisted in the Marines because his chances of getting shipped to Vietnam were slimmer than with the Army -- needed something, anything, to protest.

Defiant from the start

Consider the playwright's biography that accompanied the program of ``Defiance'' when it premiered in February 2006 at the Manhattan Theatre Club (the play's West Coast premiere is this weekend at the Pasadena Playhouse):

``John Patrick Shanley is from the Bronx. He was thrown out of St. Helena's kindergarten. He was banned from St. Anthony's hot-lunch program for life. He was expelled from Cardinal Spellman High School. He was placed on academic probation by New York University and instructed to appear before a tribunal if he wished to return. When asked why he had been treated in this way by all these institutions, he burst into tears and said he had no idea. Then he went in the United States Marine Corps. He did fine. He's still doing OK.''

Careful readers will find no mention of cars. And, in fact, the 56-year-old Shanley is probably doing significantly better than OK.

``Doubt,'' the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner, is in the midst of a national tour that kicked off last fall at the Ahmanson Theatre. The Pasadena Playhouse, which staged its own production of ``Doubt'' before the MTC production transferred to Broadway, gets the first regional production of ``Defiance'' as well.

Shanley -- an Oscar winner for his ``Moonstruck'' script in 1988 -- is in pre-production on the film adaptation of ``Doubt,'' which he has written and will direct.

Part of a planned trilogy

``Defiance'' marks the second of Shanley's planned three-play trilogy examining the nature of hierarchies. The third play isn't written, but the first two continue to set people talking. Shanley, who prints his e-mail address in the programs as well, is anxious to listen.

``Doubt is a lifelong occupation,'' he says, referring to the act, not the play. ``I always thought defiance was an incredibly necessary but transitory stance. Defiance is necessary as a catalyst for change and growth, but there has to be something after that.

``An infantalized population leaves no good place for anyone except a dictator. We're seeing that right now in Iraq, where they don't want to be led and they're not ready to lead,'' he continues. ``Somalia has been in a state of anarchy for so long, they don't want to be governed by anybody.''

``Defiance'' is set at the Camp Lejeune Marine Base in North Carolina. The year is 1971, Martin Luther King has been assassinated, and, in an environment shot through with racial tension, a white colonel and a black captain clash over issues of leadership and responsibility. The colonel's wife and the base's new chaplain play key roles.

The time period lines up with Shanley's own stint in the Marines, and certain incidents from the play mirror events that Shanley witnessed firsthand. The play contains no ``did he or didn't he?'' element of mystery as ``Doubt'' did. It's a play of ideas, and of a time.

Director Andrew Robinson considers ``Defiance'' to be ``about integrity of leadership and how we can either be served or betrayed by leadership and how defiance comes in when we are either served or betrayed. Shanley uses the Vietnam War as the backdrop, and he's strengthening that parallel to today's involvement in the Middle East.''

Asked whether he views the play itself as an act of defiance, Robinson gives a cautious affirmative.

``I think it does in that responsible way that, (with) anybody who is concerned about where we are as a society, is going to sound like a warning call,'' says the director, who has neither met nor spoken with the playwright. ``The character of the Chaplain is a really interesting, ambiguous character in the play. He has an old-testament belief in calling out leadership and standing up to power. In a way, I think that's Shanley.''

Shanley likely would not disagree.

``Something of the atmosphere that I inhabited in the Marine Corps will always be with me. It's like smoking. You always remember,'' he says. ``The racial issues and the issues of authority have stayed with me ever since. It's shown up with unexpected ramifications for the rest of my life, whenever I'm faced with an authority figure telling me to do something I might question.''

How it played out

Remember that biography about Shanley being required to petition the student tribunal at New York University in order to be readmitted? Well, whatever he told them, it worked. After the Marine Corps, Shanley returned to NYU and got down to business.

``My God, I made my teachers work like never before,'' he says. ``If I didn't think they were working hard enough or I thought their arguments had an ill-conceived point, I was very quick to point it out and to push them.

``I was paying for my college education. This wasn't some pass the time and then go on to life in the real world. I'm here because I want an education, and I'm sacrificing a lot to get it, and it better be as important to you as it is to me.''

He graduated as valedictorian. There may be something to this defiance business after all.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

DEFIANCE

Where: Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Feb. 18.

Tickets: $40 to $60. [phone].

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Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) John Patrick Shanley, above, focuses his play, ``Defiance,'' on the tension between a black captain and a white colonel (Kevin Kilner), with the colonel's wife (Jordan Baker) playing a key role.

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