I love Doubt.
I don’t mean doubt itself. I’m referring to the Tony Award-winning play by John Patrick Shanley, which I was privileged to see on Broadway from a seat in the middle of the front row. It remains perhaps the most powerful experience I have ever had as an audience member, to see this remarkable play with a quartet of superlative actors led by the incomparable Cherry Jones. Going in all I knew about the play was that it had won a bunch of awards and was about nuns . . . and I think my ignorance actually greatly enhanced the impact of the play. The story is set in 1964 and centers around a crotchety old nun, Sister Aloysius, who is the principal of a Catholic high school. She becomes convinced that the Priest of the parish, Father Flynn, has made improper advances on a young boy, and is determined to do something about it. The play sounds terribly troubling, I know- but it’s also incredibly interesting and funny as this elderly nun rails against everything from ball point pens to the pagan heresy of “Frosty the Snowman.” In the towering climax of the play when she confronts the priest with her suspicions, he rages “You have taken vows, obedience being one! You answer to us! You have no right to step outside the church!” And Sister Aloysius rages right back at him: “I will step outside the church if that’s what needs to be done, though the doors should shut behind me! I will do what needs to be done if it means that I am damned to hell! ! !”
This play makes me cry – especially that huge climax and the scene which follows. I don’t cry because it’s sad – but because it’s so superb. (Kathy and I both cried as the curtain went up at the beginning of 42nd Street, revealing a stage full of tap dancers. We bawled our eyes out like we’d just watched Bambi’s mother being killed. Strange, I know.) It’s especially powerful to see a scene like that which is written so brilliantly which is also acted so brilliantly – it’s like Joan Sutherland and the Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor – art and artist made for each other in miraculous fashion. If you’re lucky enough to witness something like that, to be in the presence of such greatness, you feel like life can’t possibly get any better than that.
Anyway, I saw Doubt on Broadway – by myself because Kathy wanted to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee . . . but Kathy and I got to see Doubt together when it came to Chicago for a limited run this past January- again with Cherry Jones in the lead role. And I liked it so much that I went back for the final performance of the run, this time with my brother-in-law Mark with me. And naughty me, I tried to make a tape recording of it- not to sell, of course, just for my own enjoyment (which still doesn’t make it right, but I don’t give a flying fig) but I had the pause button on for about 98% of the performance without realizing it. I feel very fortunate that I did manage to record that sensational climactic scene quoted above, and every so often I will take out that tape, play it back, and get those same goosebumps all over again.
Anyway, last night I saw Doubt again . . . with Kathy . . . this time at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. And once again, I cried. It was weird to see it without my beloved Tony Award-winning Cherry Jones, but the actress from Milwaukee did quite well – and the actor who portrayed Father Flynn was very nearly equalled both of the actors I saw before. The actress portraying Sister James, the young inexperienced nun who inadvertently brings the central story of the priest’s possible indiscretion to light, was very good. And the fourth member of the cast, the mother of the boy in the middle of this, was actually even better than the actress I saw in New York City (who won the Tony for best supporting actress.) The Rep did a lot of things well in this production- one really neat idea was that the stage hands who changed scenes were garbed as janitors in the school, which made the scene changes much less jarring than they might otherwise have been.
One thing that is cool about Doubt is that as you file out, you almost certainly hear people all around you on the stairs and in the lobby discussing the play – and especially the crucial question of whether or not the priest was really guilty of the misdeed he was accused of doing. I’m not sure there can be a better compliment for a play or a production than for the audience to be still caught up in the story after the curtain has come down and the house lights have come up. When Marshall and I leave most Lyric Opera performances, we are always dismayed that the only chit chat we hear after the performances is along the lines of “I wonder how the Cubs did” or “Did you remember to clear the answering machine.” Not after a performance of Doubt. No sir, this is one of those plays that wraps you in its arms and does not easily let go.
pictured: Me with Tony Award-winning actress Cherry Jones after the final performance in Chicago of “Doubt.” She greeted people in the alley behind the Schubert and was so patient and gracious, even though it was a terribly cold January day. My thanks to Mark for taking the picture.