Impassioned Ambiguities

Impassioned Ambiguities  

By Tom Wachunas

   “Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our time. ”

― John Patrick Shanley, author of Doubt

   John Patrick Shanley’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt, is a 90-minute drama with no intermission. On one level, this riveting work could be called an unresolved cerebral and emotional thriller.

    The story unfolds in 1964 at a Catholic school in the Bronx. The school principal, Sister Aloysius, accuses Father Flynn of sexual misconduct with 12 year-old Donald Muller, the school’s sole black student. Seemingly convinced that her allegations are provable, Sister Aloysius embarks on a campaign to expose and oust Father Flynn. In the process she attempts to rally support from the boy’s teacher, Sister James, and the boy’s mother, Mrs. Muller, who has her own very compelling reasons for resisting Sister Aloysius’ efforts.   

   In a recent Canton Repository article (January 4) about the current Players Guild production of the play, director Craig Joseph said, “The idea is to create a production that itself creates doubt. It fails if people walk out thinking, ‘He’s guilty’ or ‘He’s not guilty.’ It’s fun figuring out ways to shift and change the audience’s sympathies.” 

    Joseph has indeed figured out how to shift our sympathies in powerful fashion, thanks to the altogether gripping articulations from his cast of four. These articulations spring from the sharpness and depth of Shanley’s writing and its many forays into wily ambiguity. What’s written, however, could never come fully to light and life but for the prowess required to speak a language without words. Here in the intimate surrounds of the Guild’s arena space we’re able to clearly see that the cast has mastered the potency of nuanced physical expression – furrowed brows, eyes frightened or narrowed, snarling lips, heaving or stiffened shoulders, arched backs. In this tense he-said–she-said game of cat and mouse, queries and allegations are wielded like swords, parried with responses at once eloquent and terse, and all to the point, as it were, of stunning uncertainty. Even the silences that punctuate the fast-moving dialogue are voluminous with myriad unspoken questions. 

    Meg Hopp is a relentlessly commanding presence as Sister Aloysius. She perfectly embodies her character’s wry and rigid world-view, steeped as it is  in the self-righteousness and pernicious judgementalism that fuels her strident refusal to grant the possibility of Father Flynn’s innocence. She renders a complex portrait, colored with debilitating pessimism and real exasperation with what she considers to be the inept pastoral leadership in her community. She sees Sister James as too impressionable, lacking in wisdom and real-world experience - a potential ally who needs to be molded. In that role, Lana Sugarman is wholly endearing in her obsequious way, exuding a sweet vulnerability and bubbly optimism. At first not believing the report of Father Flynn’s sinful actions, as the play progresses she struggles mightily to grasp the darker implications of the circumstances emerging around her.

   Ryan C. Nehlen’s magnetic portrayal of Father Flynn makes it easy to understand Sister James' initial incredulity. He’s gentle and confident, erudite, and indisputably charismatic. And yet from the play’s outset, when he delivers an intriguing sermon that extols the spiritual value of being “stricken by private calamity,” Nehlen’s delivery - alternately poker-faced and impassioned -  has the uncanny effect of presaging trouble ahead and his more acerbic exchanges with Sister Aloysius.

   A startling surprise ensues when Sister Aloysius has a short conference with Mrs. Muller, played by Joy A. Ellis. For all of that scene’s brevity, Ellis packs it with an authentic and heartrending emotional intensity – a shift that significantly enlarges the philosophical dimensions of the story.

   There’s good reason to call this play “a parable.”  On the surface, its words might suggest an 

indictment of corrupted Catholic patriarchy and priestly pedophilia. In the end, though, I think the apparent religious context is somewhat cosmetic in nature, and arguably better regarded as symbolic of a larger societal malaise. 

   Is it still reasonable to want our words to describe or report reality in absolute, unarguable terms?  In this troubled age of moral and philosophical relativism, words can be especially convenient weapons, too easily abused, leading to tragic judgements. If nothing else, Doubt presents us with the capacity of words to veil as much as they reveal, to incite and justify uncertainties rather than declare unassailable truths. Playwright Shanley’s sobering, arresting words are woven together into a gray tapestry of innuendo, of assumptions acted upon as fact, of accusations without proof. Think of his play as a compelling allegory of the doubtful practices rampant on so many of our current social media platforms, the “…chatter of our time.” 

  

   Doubt – A Parable, by John Patrick Shanley / Directed by Craig Joseph, at Players Guild William G. Frye Theatre,  Cultural Center for the Arts, 1101 Market Ave. N., Canton / THROUGH JANUARY 28, 2018 / shows at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday.

TICKETS: $20 adults, $17 seniors, $13 ages 17 and younger. Order at 330-453-7617 and  www.playersguildtheatre.com