SHE KNEW SHE WAS RIGHT
DOUBT: A PARABLE
Directed by Christopher Shario; written by John Patrick Shanley; set design
by Dan Bilodeau; costume design by Kris Hall; lighting design by Jamie Grant
With: Peter J. Crosby, Kathy Lichter, Katelin Wilcox, and Teri Shepard
At the Public Theatre in Lewiston, Maine
From January 25, 2008 to February 3, 2008
Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves
The
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary gives the following definition for
the word parable: “a usually short fictitious story that illustrates
a moral attitude or a religious principle.” Jesus famously used them to
teach his followers, and even today, most of us are still familiar with
parables such as The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan. Some
of the parables dealt with forgiveness while others focused on hypocrisy and
societal expectations, but all were intended to be used as ethical guides.
In the
Public Theatre's intense and riveting production of the play Doubt: A
Parable, the subtitle seems to be more bitter irony than persuasive
moral instruction, a warning of what can happen when people are too sure of
themselves. Certainly there are no shining examples of good, triumphant
behavior in this play. Instead, we are given characters that variously bully
others; submit against their own better judgment; make terrible if
understandable compromises; and live in willful denial. While Doubt
might bill itself as a parable, it is, in fact, a tightly constructed story
about four flawed but vivid individuals who come up against each other’s
desires and expectations. Oddly enough, this tight construction turns out to
be a weakness as well as a strength.
Most of
the play, set in the early 1960s, takes place in Sister Aloysius Beauvoir’s
office. She is the principal of a coed Catholic school, and she has the
grim, iron grip for which older nuns are so famous. Even without a good
strong ruler, she would strike terror in the hearts of most boys and girls.
In her world, there is no room for joy, pleasure, or spontaneity, and indeed
she regards such traits with extreme suspicion. In fact, she regards almost
everything with extreme suspicion, including art and ballpoint pens as well
as Sister James, a younger nun and one of the teachers in the school. When
the play begins, Sister James is buoyant and enthusiastic. She loves
teaching and wants to pass the enthusiasm for learning on to her students.
Is Sister Aloysius grateful to have such an energetic young teacher? She is
not and instead thinks Sister James “is innocent, and innocence is a form of
laziness.” Clearly, in Sister Aloysius’s eyes, Sister James is not made out
of the “right stuff,” and she has called the young nun to her office so that
she can list her complaints. By the time Sister Aloysius is done, Sister
James is properly deflated, and promises to be less eager and naïve.
But
Sister Aloysius has another motive for calling Sister James to her office,
and that is to use her as a sort of spy against Father Brendan Flynn, the
new parish priest, also young and enthusiastic, the kind of priest who loves
coaching the boys’ basketball team. In an opening scene, we see him as the
coach and note that though he is an adult, he has a charismatic, boyish
energy that connects him to his team. Naturally, Sister Aloysius is
suspicious of such closeness, and the rest of the play revolves around
confirming these suspicions. In the process old (Sister Aloysius) comes into
conflict with new (Sister James and Father Flynn), and in one memorable,
hilarious scene, Sister Aloysius makes the pronouncement that Frosty the
Snowman is a pagan song about magic and therefore completely
inappropriate for the school’s Christmas pageant.
But
there is nothing hilarious about the confrontations between Sister Aloysius
and Father Flynn, which also take place in the office. With her witty
pronouncements and her zeal, Sister Aloysius is a terrifying cross between
Lady Bracknell and Inspector Javert, and woe be to anyone who opposes her.
However, despite his surface amiability, Father Flynn is not the meek lamb
that he initially seems to be, and he proves to be a formidable adversary,
even going so far as to use their conflict as a topic for a sermon about
tolerance. He also wields the church hierarchy as an effective weapon. They
both know that his status as a priest and a man trumps hers as a nun and a
woman, and an undercurrent of sexism roils so strongly within their
encounters that one can almost feel sorry for Sister Aloysius and even
admire her bravery. Almost.
Caught
between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn is Donald Muller, an African
American student—the only one in the school and a student in Sister James’s
class. When Sister James confesses that Father Flynn has singled out Donald
Muller for special attention, it won’t take theatergoers more than a
nanosecond to figure out what the implications are. We never see Donald
onstage—we only hear about him—but his mother is an actual character who
completes the trilogy of visitors to Sister Aloysius’s office. Mrs. Muller’s
scene is short but devastating, illustrating the ugly compromises necessary
to deal with both racism and sexual discrimination. It does not make one
long for the good old days.
And so
it goes, right to the end, when unfortunately, in the last five minutes, the
play screeches to “a Hollywood ending,” as my husband put it, full of bathos
and cheap sentiment. The conclusion veered so sharply from what had been
previously presented that I didn’t believe it for one minute. Needless to
say, I was extremely disappointed to see such an arresting play end so
falsely. Perhaps the ending was supposed to illustrate the parable-like
nature of the show, but it just didn’t work.
Fortunately, my disappointment did not extend to Peter J. Crosby, Kathy
Lichter, Katelin Wilcox, and Teri Shepard—the four Public Theatre actors who
respectively played Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius, Sister James, and Mrs.
Muller. Simply put, they were all terrific. Crosby by turns was boyish and
energetic, doubtful, and, in the end, fierce and conniving. Lichter played
Sister Aloysius with a deadpan snap, making her humorous, scary, and
pathetic all at the same time. Wilcox’s Sister James went from buoyant to
deflated, believably illustrating how someone like Sister Aloysius can suck
the joy out of life. Finally, Teri Shepard was magnificent as Mrs. Muller, a
woman caught in an unlovely situation and trying to make the best of it.
Despite
my dislike of the ending, this play is very much worth seeing. It ran for an
hour and half without an intermission, and fortified ahead of time by a
delicious chocolate chip cookie sold at the concession stand, I didn’t
fidget once. It’s a play that will stay with me for a long time, and this
almost allows me to forgive the ending. Almost.
