Doubt [Paperback]

There's something about Father Flynn (Brian O'Byrne) that doesn't sit right with Sister Aloysius (Cherry Jones). The year is 1964. The shadow of the Kennedy assassination hangs in the air like a thin fog, integration has begun to spread throughout the country, and, at a Catholic grammar school in the Bronx, the traditions Aloysius relies upon are slipping away. No person represents this progression of time and society more than Flynn. He personalizes his sermons, takes three sugars in his tea, and treats the students with a familiarity that Sister Aloysius believes can only lead to disrespect. However, what makes Aloysius most uneasy about Flynn is the relationship between him and the school's first African-American student. It's a relationship she believes has gone too far. Though she has little more than her gut to go on, Aloysius, with the ambivalent assistance of a young, idealistic fellow sister, goes about a private investigation to correct the wrong she knows has occurred.

The brilliance of Doubt (John Patrick Shanley's funny, suspenseful and finally devastating play) is its combination of Aloysius's forward drive with Flynn's compassionate intellect. Sister Aloysius could have been painted as a fire-and-brimstone kook, but Shanley allows us to see the steel rod of principle that supports Aloysius's stern demeanor and almost maddening certainty. Similarly, Father Flynn stands in for the forward-thinking, tender man of the cloth many long for in the wake of the sex scandal's of the Catholic Church. Yet there is also a subtle manipulation to Flynn's innocuous quirks that draws us in. We like Flynn while, like Aloysius, instinctively analyze his every word and action, for clues to the truth of the matter at hand.

Clocking in at around an hour-and-a-half, Doubt is a marvel of compact, streamlined narrative. There isn't a superfluous action or misplaced word, and the characters speak with the no-nonsense cadences of individuals who actually grew up and around the streetlights and subways of the Bronx. Shanley's depth of character and comprehension of narrative is made all the more stunning by his play's brevity. He is certainly assisted by director Doug Hughes's elegant staging and two towering performances by O'Byrne and especially Jones. If one can see this play live (currently at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York), I highly recommend it. It was one of the most powerful theater-goeing experiences I've ever been privileged to attend.

Even if you can't, however, the piercing complexity of Shanley's words are worth every cent. We never do find out the truth behind Flynn's relationship with the young boy, although there is evidence for and against that can lead a reader to induce what they like. Shanley's ultimate vision is of the elusiveness and impossibility of the truth, and the price of certainty. And all the while, he never forgets the terse mystery and fascinating character study at the play's heart. It's a tribute to Doubt's ingenious construction and peerless insight that the play's final moments are its most revealing. A lie is uncovered, a resolution is decided upon, and the battered heart of a seemingly inconquerable woman is layed bare with a revealing, haunting final line.

In an age of theatrical uncertainty, the astonishing Doubt is beyond reproach.

Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Doubt is, by turns, funny, shocking, stimulating, and ultimately, wise. Capturing the conflicts within St. Nicholas Church and its school in the Bronx in 1964, the play revolves around Sister Aloysius Beauvier, a rigidly doctrinaire school principal in her fifties who strictly controls both the staff and her students. A late entrant into the religious life, Sister Aloysius was married to a man killed during World War II, and the school has become her life. Sister James, a young teacher in her twenties, is temperamentally her opposite, a young woman who loves her students and is warm and generous towards them.

When Sister Aloysius concludes that Donald Muller, the first black student at the school, is getting too much attention from Father Brendan Flynn, she sets the play's central conflict in motion. Though she has no evidence that anything untoward has occurred, she proceeds as if Donald has been sexually abused by the priest, never doubting her conclusions. Sister James doubts Sister Aloysius and has faith in the priest.

The issue becomes more complex when both Sister Aloysius and Fr. Flynn approach the same church hierarchy--she to ask for an investigation and he to protect his reputation. Questions of doubt multiply, both for the characters and for the audience: Does something called "the truth" exist? How much should one accept on faith? When is an issue so important that one must put aside doubts and act? When do one's doubts lead to growth?

Set during a time when sexual abuse was not receiving the attention it has received in recent years, the play shows the damage which can occur when someone believes too easily in a specific "truth," whether that be the "truth" as defined by a prevailing culture, such as the church, or the kind of "truth" which one seeks in a courtroom. As the author points out in his preface, "We've got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word."

The play's four characters interact in a series of powerful and often moving scenes in which the "theatrics" are deliberately restrained. Shanley avoids easy answers to the mystery at the heart of this play, forcing the audience to think about the action as it unfolds, expanding the audience's vision, and showing that "It is Doubt that changes things." At the end of the play, the audience will be full of doubts about the central conflict, and that, according to Shanley, is good. n Mary Whipple

John Patrick Shanley's script for the play Doubt is a masterpiece. It is basically about "truth" as a social construct with a broad range of consequences depending on how the construct is framed and accepted. Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the Catholic school principal, is convinced that she has discovered a truth about Father Brendan Flynn, a robust likable assertive priest.

A great strength of this script is that Shanley leaves the mystery somewhat unresolved. Though some reviewers have concluded that Father Flynn did have some sexual involvement with the Black student, Donald Muller, there is still much room for doubt since Father Muller could have been transferred to another parrish to avoid Sister Aloysius' continued assault on his reputation and his peace of mind.

The script wisely begins with the central theme of the play, as given in a sermon by Father Flynn. He states: "What do you do when you are not sure?" The play cascades from this point with Sister Aloysius convinced of Father Flynn's guilt and Sister James wracked with moral uncertainty as to what is true or not true and what are the moral consequences for each decision.

The play is masterfully written, much like a detective story, in which each clue that propels you toward one solution is then counter-poised with another clue drawing you in the opposite direction and conclusion. The reader may suspend judgement throughout the play, absorbing the subtle clues that propel this clash of characters forward; or the reader may take sides, since Father Flynn is a likeable, robust, assertive, clever, strong, person who is contrasted with the cold rock strength and certainty of Sister Aloysius, who is never presented as especially warm or compassionate yet her actions speak to great compassion if indeed she fully believes she is interrupting the sexual predatory actions of Father Flynn.

The play's strengths are expanded when we hear from Donald Muller's mother who tells us her son is an effiminate child who was been repeatedly beaten in public schools as well as by his father for his effiminate behaviors. In Catholic school, his mother hoped he would be protected. The wise Mrs. Muller realizes that her son's effiminate behavior is strongly correlated with same-sex eroticism when she tells Sister Aloysius 'my son is that way'. Thus this wise mother sees the possible affectionate attentions of this white priest toward her son as far more desirable than the hostility he experiences from young males in public school or from his own father. The character of Mrs. Muller is unexpected, and throws a complete different light onto the actions of the play. Sister Aloysius thought she had found a partner and then found more than for which she had bargained.

I must say, Father Muller's opening sermon, the sermon about doubt which originally sets Sister Aloysius upon his trail, is wonderful. The tale is of a sailor who experiences a terrible ship wreck at sea, and amid the confusion climbs aboard a raft and is the only man saved in the wreck. He sets his course based on the stars since he has learned to navigate from the stars. Yet for the next 28 days the clouds cover the sky every night and he is uncertain whether he remains on course or whether he is doomed. Father Flynn equates this to spiritual/religious revelation/inspiration followed by years of doubt. Yet the questioning and the seeking create a bond with truth and thus doubt becomes as strong a spiritual tool as certainty.

With not a word out of place, this play is a modern masterpiece bound to be a classic.

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