John Patrick Shanley’s gripping 90-minute Doubt won many awards on Broadway in 2005 and then went on to be a film with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman and win more awards. Sister Aloysius, the principal of Catholic school in the Bronx in the 1960s, accuses Father Flynn of paedophilia.
Sister Aloysius, a sour, abrasive disciplinarian, is a traditionalist who dislikes Flynn’s liberality. She has no compassion and is prepared to go to any lengths, however illegal, to destroy him. Stella Gonet gets the sister’s icy tone exactly. But is Flynn guilty? Was his relationship with the 12-year-old altar boy ever anything more than teacher-pupil?
The playwright, the director Ché Walker, and the actor Jonathan Chambers are deliberately ambiguous in this excellently acted production. However, I don’t think there will be any doubt in the audience’s mind. But where’s the actual proof? That’s the point. Shanley describes his play as a parable on the dangers of rigid moral certainty.