Did he or didn't he? You'll have doubts
By Hindi Greenberg
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12:01 a.m. PT May 1, 2008
Though Foothill Theatre's new play, "Doubt, A Parable," is supposed to create uncertainty in the observer's mind, I have absolutely no doubt that Foothill has another winner.
"Doubt" addresses a topic currently writ large in the news-sex abuse in the Catholic Church. In playwright John Patrick Shanley's Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning script, Catholic school principal, Sister Aloysius (played by Sharon Winegar), suspects sexual misconduct by Father Flynn (Gary Wright) with a male student.
She asks the student's teacher, Sister James (Elena Wright), to be on the lookout for anything strange and then construes reported behavior to fit her presumptions.
However, Sister Aloysius can't terminate Father Flynn as she is outranked by the church's male hierarchy and she doesn't have solid proof of misconduct.
Sister James doesn't share her superior's sense of certainty, so she vacillates in her belief as to Father Flynn's guilt or innocence. To me, this is the crux of the play-whether certainty of any belief is possible and whether having absolute conviction is a virtue?
It asks if there aren't multiple ways of looking at every situation. Or as the student's mother, played by Gloria Stingily, says to the principal, things aren't always black and white.
Other thought provoking issues ask whether a negative situation can be created out of whole cloth? Can reputation, once sullied, ever be cleansed? Are warmth, love and enthusiasm ever traits to fear and therefore repress? The answers are not clear. The audience, like the characters, may eventually take sides but not without doubts, and that's what is so wonderful-no prescribed answers.
Director Carolyn Howarth does an excellent job, moving her actors smoothly in and out of the purposefully claustrophobic set, nicely designed by Matthew Compton and helped wonderfully by Les Solomon's lighting and sound transitions.
Though all four actors were excellent, I was particularly taken with Gary Wright's anger. From numerous past plays, I know he does funny, personable, even charming quite well. But I hadn't previously seen him do "really angry," and the conviction of his fury was intense. However, Elena Wright, who is very believable as the somewhat naïve Sister James, should stop using the adopted accent. It occasionally sounded like she was speaking with something in her mouth.
Foothill Theatre is two for two this season-"Urinetown" and now "Doubt." Don't miss their latest hit, playing through May 25th at the Nevada Theatre.
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Hindi Greenberg relates to this play particularly-she had previously seen someone's reputation shattered by another person's zealous but misdirected mission and, therefore, doubts that absolute conviction is a virtue and hopes that warmth and enthusiasm aren't traits to suppress. So now you know whose side she takes in this play-but not without some doubts.
