"There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds..." Alfred, Lord Tennyson: In Memoriam, A.H.H.
John Patrick Shanley's prize-winning 2004 Doubt: a parable, in a tense intermission less 90-minutes on the Wetumpka Depot stage, starts a conversation with the audience that ought to continue for some time after its final moments.
In our world full of conspiracy theories, where a mere hint of scandal or impropriety quickly escalates [despite a lack of concrete evidence] into full-blown, heated arguments that do not concede any ground from either side, what happens in Doubt should come as no surprise; but Shanley and Depot director Beth Butler adroitly leave it up to the audience to determine which side they take.
Set in a Roman Catholic parish and school in New York in 1964, the play's four characters are faced with an unsubstantiated feeling by a naively earnest young nun that the local pastor might have had an improper relationship with a teenage boy, the first African American student at the school. Sister James [Sarah Smith] confides her feeling about a progressive-leaning Father Flynn [Jay Russell] to Sister Aloysius [Kristy Meanor], a rigidly conservative school principal, who assumes his guilt is certain, and then campaigns to expose him so he can suffer consequences she believes he deserves.
Father Flynn's homily on the value of uncertainty opens the play, only to suggest to Sister Aloysius that her staunch belief in resisting any change from the status quo is the only right path. After Sister Aloysius has told him of her suspicions, Father Flynn retaliates with a sermon on gossip, setting up what is to come.
In several sequences, we witness Sister Aloysius's attempts to get Father Flynn to admit to deviant behavior, and his insistence on his innocence; and Sister James's uncertainty about her feelings furthers the flames of doubt. -- Even an interview between Sister Aloysius and the boys Mother, Mrs. Muller [Michelle Summers], whose reluctance to accuse the priest frustrates Sister Aloysius even more.
Ms. Butler's fully committed ensemble actors are so convincingly credible in their roles, and deliver Shanley's dialogue with such conviction, that audience sympathies might shift several times during the action; there's always something else to consider, as evidence or lack thereof mounts up. -- In the end, each audience member must weigh the various sides of the argument and perhaps be swayed to an uncomfortable conclusion.
Doubt: a parable is a provocative drama that challenges actors and audiences in a live theatre performance to not only make a determination about Father Flynn's guilt or innocence, but on their own ability to question their own certainty about a wide variety of subjects. -- Food for thought.
