first night review: doubt, a parable

The cast of Doubt: A Parable @ Le Petit Theatre (photo: Brittney Werner)

​Doubt: A Parable @ Le Petit Theater 
Review by David Lewis

When Doubt: A Parable debuted on Broadway in 2005 it immediately won four Tonys and the Pulitzer, which seems like a striking feat for a four-character one-act play about suspected sexual abuse by a Catholic priest.

John Patrick Shanley’s examination of a New York catholic school navigating the possible misdeeds of an affable young priest chose for setting and environment an incredibly loaded situation, but the play isn’t entirely “about” the high-stakes situation it tees up, but rather the dire processes behind the internal decisions faced by its four characters.

When principal Sister Aloysius, deeply mistrustful of both the secular and the overly informal, fences with Father Brendan Flynn over her suspicions about his conduct, we wonder whether her struggle is actually more with her own faith.

Actor Leslie Nipkow finds humor in the character, delivering some of the nun’s most acerbic lines with wicked timing, but also seems to establish herself with the eager and optimistic younger nun Sister James such as to remind you that “grooming” isn’t limited to sinister priests or male abusers. Elizabeth McCoy’s Sister James slowly unravels under the constant accusations and cynicism of her superior, until the shell that’s left is almost identifiable as a younger Aloysius.
 
If there’s a close but reluctant alliance between the two nuns, the distant alliance of actors David Lind and Queen Shereen Macklin is more haunting and complex. Lind plays Father Flynn, the priest accused of abusing the school’s only African American student; Macklin portrays the boy’s mother, Mrs. Muller.

Although the two won’t share a scene, they together explore complicity and deniability, two actors giving strangely corresponding performances, both characters with shockingly parallel agency. Macklin’s Mrs. Muller reminds me of the Greek chorus: it’s the most passive role of the four. These things are happening to her and her family, but we’re still never given the option to acquit her. Like the chorus, she in this way provides the most direct bridge to the audience.
 
The dialogue is tense, but director Ashley Santos senses the play’s real tension stems from the unsaid implications in a narrative that coldly withholds resolution. We are forced to assess disparate themes as though they are truly natural contrasts: The tension between redemption and safety; “cancel culture” social reactions and the very real threat of child abuse by trusted adults in ostensibly safe places; the injurious certitude of the blindly faithful and the crippling risk-avoidance of those waiting for someone else to solve the problems.

Shanley’s masterpiece is well positioned in our current social moment – and in the theater, you’ll find that the distance between yourself and the players is insufficient insulation from the invariable weakness of your own convictions. 

Doubt, A Parable plays at Le Petit Théâtre through May 18th. Click here for information and ticketing.

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