By: Samuel L. Leiter
March 15, 2024: The Roundabout’s revival of John Patrick Shanley’s taut-as-a-tripwire 2004 drama Doubt: A Parable has been racked by health setbacks to its acting company. First, Tyne Daly had to drop out of the role of Sister Aloysius Beauvier, requiring the distinguished Amy Ryan to step in with very little time to prepare. Then, on the day I was booked, I learned that one of the principals would be out and that critics—most of them awards voters—would need to reschedule so they could see the complete regular company. A friend who happened to be at that performance told me that Liev Schreiber had appeared before the play began to apologize for not being able to perform, his role of Father Flynn being taken by Chris McGarry, who, my friend said, turned in a fine performance. I was finally able to attend last night and can assure you it was well worth the wait.
Doubt, which won both the Tony and the Pulitzer, among many other awards, remains a gleaming example of how a playwright can craft a gemlike drama lasting less than 90 tension-filled minutes by focusing on a single dynamic conflict with a cast of only four sculpturally precise characters. It provides just enough exposition to fill in the blanks, avoids unnecessary subplots and bloviating commentary, and—as per its title—includes enough questions to keep the audience on its mental toes, even after the final curtain. Although it’s not a courtroom drama, its best scenes closely resemble one, with prosecution, defense, and witness keeping you on tenterhooks.
Under Scott Ellis’s perfectly calibrated direction, Ryan, Schreiber, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, and Zoe Kazan offer an acting showcase every bit as memorable as what Cherry Jones, Brían F. O’Byrne, Adriane Lenox, and Heather Goldenhersh brought to the 2004 original, or Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, and Amy Adams to the 2008 movie.
The setup is simple: It’s 1964 and Father Flynn (Schreiber) is the regular guy-like, socially progressive parish priest at the St. Nicholas Church in the Bronx, where he also coaches the church’s parochial school basketball team. He opens the play with a brief sermon on the distinction between doubt and certainty.
Sister Aloysius (Ryan), of the Sisters of Charity, is the self-righteous widow of a man who died in World War II; she’s the school’s rigid, rules-bound disciplinarian, a kind of Big Sister surveilling her staff and students for any signs of moral laxness.
Sister James (Kazan) is a fledgling teacher who loves her profession, and cares deeply for her charges. In her innocence, timidity, and warmth, she’s the direct opposite of her controlling, narrowminded principal, whose oppressive beliefs she finds stultifying.
It doesn’t take long for Shanley to get to his point: Sister Aloysius suspects, on the flimsiest of evidence, that Father Flynn has been molesting a new boy, Donald Muller, the school’s only Black kid, whose place as an altar boy is threatened because he drank from a bottle of sacristy wine. It’s not long before she makes her accusation directly to Father Flynn, in the presence of Sister James, a scene that escalates into a fiery debate as the wounded priest defends himself. Flynn uses the situation to sermonize on gossip. Disbelieving the priest, the principal calls in the boy’s mother (Bernstine), a woman determined to make her son—whose father beats him—succeed despite the odds against him; when she hears the sister’s accusations, Mrs. Muller has a decidedly unexpected reaction.
The conflict between the priest and the nun grows exponentially more inflamed, with an outcome that resolves the immediate situation but, because of Shanley’s deft writing, leaves the matter of Father Flynn’s guilt in doubt, more than which I’ll not divulge. This is good, strong, middlebrow drama, the kind that gives actors plenty of histrionic meat and potatoes (two scenes ended with applause for exiting actors), and that keeps you sitting on the proverbial edge of your seat throughout.
Amy Ryan, who like Liev Schreiber, flavors her dialogue with an authentic-sounding, perfectly articulated New York accent, is pitch perfect as the desiccated, ruthless Sister Aloysius, who nonetheless proves to have a still ticking—albeit faintly—heart beneath her voluminous habit. Schreiber—who makes a fine Irish priest for a nice Jewish boy—brings all his charisma, intelligence, and conviction to the beleaguered cleric, making you desperately want to support him before niggling doubts arise. Kazan, better than I’ve ever seen her, portrays Sister James with the requisite vulnerability and innate kindness. And, while she has only one scene, Off-Broadway mainstay Bernstine, in the unforgettable one-scene role that snared Adriane Lenox a Tony and Viola Davis an Oscar, captures every nuance of Mrs. Muller’s unusual colloquy.
David Rockwell’s set, mainly of the principal’s office and an outdoor garden area amid Gothic walls, with minimal elements for the church interior and a locker room, is on the money; however, the office entrance and its wall can’t be seen by playgoers seated to the right. Kenneth Posner’s lighting establishes the correct moody tone, Linda Cho’s costumes remind us of the days when nuns were practically buried in their headgear and habits, and Mikaal Sulaiman’s sound design helps make every consonant crisp.
Whatever you may think of Father Flynn’s guilt or innocence, Doubt: A Parable is without doubt one play you’ll want to see before its limited run closes.
Doubt: A Parable
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Todd Haimes Theatre
227 W. 42nd Street, NYC
Through April 14, 2024
Photography: Joan Marcus
