Reviewed by Dr. Tiffany Raymond, PhD
The Iron Horse Theatre Company in Ambridge is currently staging John Patrick Shanley’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt. The theatre is a former church less than a mile from Ambridge High School, where my mom graduated in 1970. It made for an eerie colliding of the worlds as Doubt takes place at a Catholic school in the 1960s.
The brilliance of Doubt is its seeming simplicity: the nun, who is the school principal, Sister Aloysius (Cyndi Plyler), suspects the priest, Father Flynn (Dan Sypolt), of abusing boys. Shanley’s 2004 play came out two years after the Boston Globe broke the story about sexual abuse within the church, setting a smooth path to snapping Father Flynn into that master narrative. Shanley resists providing or allowing for such easy conclusions. Does the stern, standoffish Sister Aloysius simply have a grievance against the Father’s more modern, gregarious, approachable style, or is there really wrongdoing?
With lesser actors and direction, the play could easily devolve into tedium. Director Michelle Morris-Donner takes her cues from Shanley and heightens the tension by threading the audience’s beliefs from one side to the other. At one point, Father Flynn flops into Sister Aloysius’ chair behind her desk, and the ease with which Sypolt executes that simple act of presumption seems to cement doubts against him. Then, Sister Aloysius rages at him about how “Frosty the Snowman” is a pagan song when Father Flynn suggests adding a single secular tune to the Christmas pageant. Plyler’s tirade of spitting tones against Frosty captures a certain unhinged quality that makes one doubt the nun’s grasp on reality. Words, body language, and actions provide the codes we read to define truth and assign blame. The fluidity of human interactions runs roughshod over those codes. Just as we’ve assigned guilt, a new input causes us to resort and stack rank mentally.
Sister James (Caitlin Young), an 8th-grade teacher, reflects the audience’s mental juggling. Sister Aloysius wants Sister James to be more distant from her students and has her report on Father Flynn. Sister James’ youth is a foil to the Mother Superior, and Sister Aloysius perceives Sister James as pliable. While Sister James initially bows to her superior, the play is also about finding her own voice and courage. Morris-Donner familiarizes Sister James’ struggle to strike a balance with authority figures above us who have power. We want to be guided and respected without being dictated to.
Jessica Patrick portrays Mrs. Muller the mother of the school’s first black student. Muller is neat as a pin in her ensemble, complete with matching mint green shoes and pocketbook. Her appearance is an outward reflection of her orderly mind, and her deft handling of Sister Aloysius is impressive. Morris-Donner guides her to confidence without caving while also creating new layers of Doubt as we judge her parenting choices.
Lighting designer J. Daniel Craig thoughtfully utilizes stained glass projections to convert Sister Aloysius’ principal’s office into Father Flynn’s pulpit, creating a palimpsest that highlights the sermonizing that unites both characters—reminding us that those in opposition are more similar than different.
In the current season of political ads that pin the whole economy’s hopes or woes on a single candidate, Shanley’s nuance and willingness to live in the gray, the liminal spaces, the in-between where you have to think critically and explore your own beliefs, is a refreshing counter. Shanley and Morris-Donner caution against soundbite conclusions and remind us of the value of deeper thought. Unlike the nuns’ habits, the world is not a neatly bifurcated black and white.
Doubt runs through October 29th at Iron Horse Theatre Company. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit http://www.ironhorsetheatrecompany.com/
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