For the month of March Pacific Theatre’s rendition of John Patrick Shanley’s (Danny and the Deep Blue Sea), Doubt a Parable has been getting much acclaim from both theatre enthusiasts and drop-ins alike. And how! Directed by Ron Reed, twisting the perception of both the characters’ in the play along with the audience’s, and challenging the faith and desire to believe in those who appear with kind intentions, Doubt is a thought-provoking performance that will leave you splashing in a mass of, well, thoughts.
The performance opens with a sermon about doubt given by the well-liked Father Flyn. In the 1960s Bronx Catholic school, the silver-tongued priest and gym teacher, played by the ever-so-naturally smooth Giovanni Mocibob, is progressive and popular, much unlike the school principal whom all the students are “uniformly terrified of,” Sister Aloysius (pronounced “ell-wishes”). She runs her ship tightly, and through fear. She herself is no different, as Erla Faye Forsyth delivers a stern, disciplined but wry – and never cold – performance. Sister Aloysius may be traditional and a little old, but she has quite the fire in those intolerant bones of hers.
It is when a newcomer teacher, the innocent and kind Sister James (Kaitlin Williams appears perfectly bright-eyed and squeamish) notices a peculiar closeness between Father Flyn and a grade eight student of hers, the first and only black child Donald Muller, that things become troubled.
Alter-wine on Donald Muller’s breath! Private chat with the priest! Suspicions cultivating with no evidence! Trust, mistrust! Blame and lies! Restrictions of the hierarchy and rules of the school! Sister Aloysius launches a campaign to expel the priest from tainting her school any longer. The only problem is that her campaign is only fueled by suspicions and her certainty. How do you catch a wrong doer with no evidence? How do you create a trusting alliance with no evidence for your beliefs?
Even Donald Muller’s mother (a short, up-and-down moment with Leslie Lewis Sword) decides to push aside Sister Aloysius suspicions, for the sake of her son. Trying to keep her son from any more harm that has already happened, she wants to believe that what’s on the table now – no evidence of anything – is what’s really going on and feign ignorance. She knows what her son is and how they would treat him anywhere outside of St. Nicolas school. He’d be even worse off at home with his abusive homophobic father. At least here Father Flyn has shown a kind hand towards him. Let anything happen until June, she says. If we don’t know anything for certain then we shouldn’t have to worry or care, she means. Just keep the peace.
But peace can’t be kept and Sister Aloysius will stop at nothing to prove her suspicions right. She will push her own faith, her own boundaries and even step away from God in order to do righteousness. How far can one go and how many people will be affected doing so? Sister James, being the most trusting and naive, is the perfect example of the vulnerable caught between doubt and faith, nun and priest. How can the likable Father Flyn have done something so out of character? Perhaps it is the conservative mind of Sister Aloysius that mistrusts Father Flyn, a progressive termite eating away at her unbending traditions? Who to believe? Who to trust? Beneath whose mask hides a spirit walking away from God?
The audience too finds themselves caught up in these chaotic thoughts, wanting to believe one story to keep the peace but doubting their own thoughts. The minimal setting does not distract you from these thoughts, if not bringing you in even deeper. With Pacific Theatre’s unique two-sided stage being so intimate with the audience, you find yourself almost trespassing on these tense moments, which make your hairs stand by their unnerving silent pauses, sprinkled with angered spit. You are so emotionally involved that you don’t even realize that time has flown by, the play has ended, and you are left with your mouth slightly agape with thoughts and feelings to deal with with your neighbour, that is, after you let the circulation run back into his or hers arm. (Did I mention that this performance gets intense?)
Doubt, a Parable can really hit home to many. You may have had to face your own real-life doubts and fears. Everyone doubts. To doubt is to be human. At some or many points in your life, past present or future, you may come to face a question that shakes your foundations, question or test your faith or warp your sense of truth. But it is when you are in doubt that you can put your faith and trust in God and see that there will be a way made clear to you.
Pacific Theatre promo illustration and photo by Emily Cooper
