Doubt: a Parable

Published Friday 30 November 2007 at 15:00 by Jeremy Austin

John Patrick Shanley’s simply constructed but deeply effective play could have become swamped in polemic as he uses accusations, suspicions and doubts in Bronx Catholic school to examine the nature of conviction and the birth of the modern world during the mid-sixties.

But just as the characters begin to wallow in self-examination, he whips up the pace, and the story of a possibly well-meaning priest being accused of paedophilia absorbs the audience. “Possibly well meaning”? Well, yes - it’s not only the characters who feel doubt and uncertainty even after the final curtain.

It’s an intense play that works because of the solid individuals at its centre - the modernising, tough-talking Bronx priest Father Flynn, the naïve, virginal Sister James, and Sister Aloyisius, the suspicious, world-weary, controlling elder of the community. Added to this is Nikki Amuka-Bird as the headstrong mother of the boy, who, as the audience’s advocate, voices our doubts about the accusations.

As Flynn, Pádraic Delaney has to work hard. Initially his character is little more than a mouthpiece for the play’s philosophy, but develops once accusations start to fly. The ambiguity as to his intentions towards the apparently abused boy, however, is never fully addressed and for that reason Delaney is left open like an untreated sore.

Marcella Plunkett’s Sister James is a delicate creation who is gradually crushed by the inadequacies of a blind faith against a cruel world. Plunkett successfully fights her corner against the overpowering Sister Aloysius, one of those creations that is a huge gravitational force on stage, sucking the audience into her. Dearblha Molloy fills her, pulling her back from caricature. It’s a skilled performance that turns the audience against the character while still allowing them to have their suspicions about the priest.