Doubt: A Parable ‘challenging, stimulating and enlightening’ - Scott Overton

After leading off the season with a full-blown farce, The Sudbury Theatre Centre’s artistic director David Savoy has veered sharply away from that territory for the second offering of Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley.

I haven’t seen the 2008 movie starring Meryl Streep. It was directed by Shanley himself, from his own adaptation of the stage play, and was nominated for five Oscars. But the play is a Tony award and Pulitzer Prize winner in its own right.

The story is set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, when dreams had been dashed by the death of JFK, but also when the Second Ecumenical Council of Vatican II was overturning many long-standing traditions of the Catholic church.

Popular priest Father Flynn is suspected of an inappropriate relationship with the school’s first black student, and its rigidly disciplinarian principal, Sister Aloysius, is determined to take him down.

The play is called Doubt for a reason — there is no real evidence against Father Flynn, and from an opening sermon on the subject, it’s left for the audience to decide his guilt or innocence.

Shanley wrote the play during the lead-up to the Iraq war. For a time it was heresy to criticize the war or even the Bush administration. This play is Shanley’s response, pointing out the importance of asking questions, but also the dreadful cost of accusations without proof.

Your experience watching Doubt will depend a lot on what you bring to it, including a Catholic background, but the play isn’t about Catholicism. The universally abhorrent crime of child molestation is used as a flash point to explore much broader issues. On opening night, the STC production had some trouble finding itself in the early going.

Popular song clips and humourous elements (some intentional, others likely not) jarred at times, leaving the audience a little uncertain. Lead actors Gordon Bolan as Father Flynn and Elva Mai Hoover as Sister Aloysius are both strong.

Shannon Currie as young teacher Sister James credibly depicts a loss of innocence and optimism. But the standout performance is by Janet Bailey as the student’s mother. When Bailey unfolds her thoroughly convincing portrayal of this woman and the dilemma she faces, the play truly gels. Although reviews rarely mention the physical trappings, I have to applaud Geoffrey Dinwiddie and his crew for a thoroughly persuasive and ingenious set—it is one of the production’s real strengths.

Doubt: A Parable isn’t popcorn fare. But if you crave something challenging, stimulating, and enlightening, it delivers.
The play runs until Nov. 15 at the Sudbury Theatre Centre. Phone the STC box office 674-8381, ext. 21.

Scott Overton is a long-time radio broadcaster and current host of the program Country Gospel Sunday mornings on KFM 95.5 Sudbury. He writes theatre reviews for Northern Life.