Sydney Reviews

There is no doubt, only a certainty, that Marion Potts’ STC production of Doubt is outstanding.

John Patrick Shanley’s play examines the concept of certainty with consummate skill exploring evil and good, assurance and its absence, evidence and interpretation, guilt and innocence.

Set in 1964, a year after the assassination of American President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, an incident that spawned so many conspiracy theories, Doubt centres and pivots on another conspiracy, contained within the Catholic church, the cover up of paedophile priests.

St. Nicholas Catholic School is ruled over by Sister Aloysius Beauvier (a surname tantalisingly similar to the slain President’s widow), made widow herself through the war with Adolph Hitler. Pugnacious and pragmatic and not a little autocratic, she sees herself as a protector of her pupils against a perceived predatory priesthood. A conservative Catholic who bristles at the patriarchy of the institution.

She, as shepherd of her flock of students, is suspicious of recent arrival reverend, Father Brendan Flynn. He wears his nails long, uses a ball point pen and has taken a particular interest in a boy, the only black student in the school.

Contradiction, conundrum, conflict, racism, misogyny and homophobia run through this play like a main circuit cable snaking through a moral minefield of explosive allegation.

The cast is exquisite: Pamela Rabe as the no nonsense nun, Sam Reid as Father Brendan Flynn, Shannen Alyce-Quan as Sister James, the novice torn between loyalties to her Mother Superior, the priest and her students, and Zindzi Okenyo as Mrs. Muller, the mother of the boy who has become the catalyst for Sister Aloysius’ suspicions, are collectively dramatic dynamite.

Bob Cousins’ design featuring Francisco de Zurbarán’s iconic Agnus Dei employs a revolving stage that rotates from principal’s office, school courtyard and pulpit, complimented with a background New York streetscape.

Damien Cooper’s lighting shades and blends subtly and seamlessly with scene changes, contrasting on occasion with the imposing, theatricality of spotlighting the priest’s pithy sermons, while Jessica Dunn’s sound design hums with hymn and chant.

In the recent screen adaptation of Robert Harris’ Conclave, a Cardinal makes an impassioned plea for doubt. “Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' he cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore, no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.”

In Doubt we are left with mystery, but also a restored faith in the power of theatre.