 |  |  |  |  |
Usher Nonsense, Vol. 2, No. 15
DOUBT by John Patrick Shanley (Danny and The Deep Blue Sea, Defiance), Directed by Doug
Hughes (Beard of Avon, Last Easter, Touch of the Poet, Defiance)
With Heather Goldenhersh, Cherry Jones, Adriane Lenox, Brían F. O’Byrne
Sets - John Lee Beatty (Rabbit Hole, The Color Purple, Defiance, Wonderful Town) Costumes -
Catherine Zuber (Defiance, Light in the Piazza), Lights - Pat Collins (Defiance, Sight Unseen)
Manhattan Theatre Club, City Center – through January 9, 2005.
I'm a recovering Catholic. Let's get that said right away, because I don't want you to think
that the reason I really really really liked this play is that it invades a corner of the Catholic
Church with a laser scalpel. You don't have to be Catholic to like this play, though, because it's
not reeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllly about the Church.
It's about certainty vs. doubt. About seeing with blinders on vs. the benefits of peripheral
vision. It is about absolutely vs. perhaps.
It is 1963. Sister Aloysius (Jones), is a member of the Sisters of Charity and principal of a
Catholic high school in the Bronx. She is suspicious of the new priest's new ideas, particularly
of his attention to the children, particularly to the boys. She plants seeds of concern with Sister
James (Goldenhersh), a younger nun, and moves like a heat-seeking missile when they take
hold.
This is however, not a simple story. Shanley's characters arrive fully formed. Sister Aloysius,
like the founder of her order, Elizabeth Seton, was married before she became a nun and
possesses a heart larger than appearances would dictate. Sister James is no pushover, and her
love for her students reveals itself in unexpected waves of passion. Father Flynn (O'Byrne)
questions life's vagaries openly until he is bound up in them. And the one parent (Lenox) we
meet in the story is committed to protecting her son in ways that might be viewed as
unorthodox. Events do not come to rest in a tidy little pile in this community.
It is all of a piece, this one. Jones and Goldnhersh are exceptional. Lenox manages to make us
believe her mission in a very short time onstage. O'Byrne is a lot on and a little off. His
accent cracks enough to now and then interfere with the rhythm of the play, which is written in
Bronx-ese. (Somebody oughta take him up the Bronx, say, drop him off, okay, and tell him he
can come back when his accent is as good as the play he's in.)
Mostly, this is one of those nights in the theatre that make you say yes yes yes yes yes.
HOT TIP – If you can't get tickets to this show, try for General Admission ($20). You have to
wait in line for no-shows, but it's worth it.
©2004 Tulis McCall