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Fiona Mountford's rating
, Not doubtful enough by half
By
Fiona Mountford
27 Nov 2007
It's always a worry when an actor starts squinting. Rather than suggesting the need for an optician's appointment, screwed-up eyes tend to signal a desperate attempt to inject intensity where it is lacking. This certainly holds true for Dearbhla Molloy's Sister Aloysius, whose narrowed gaze is bad news for John Patrick Shanley's look at the always-resonant issue of child abuse in the Catholic Church.
The ponderously titled Doubt: A Parable arrives from New York garlanded with a Pulitzer Prize and dripping with acclaim, having apparently, Oleanna-like, sent play-goers arguing out into the night. It's hard to imagine Nicolas Kent's lacklustre production keeping tongues wagging on the long walk back down Kilburn High Road; indeed, my friend and I had covered several more engaging topics by the time we reached the station.
Shanley's brief, aphorism-heavy four-hander is set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, when the golden age of certainty had passed away with JFK. Even the seemingly indestructible monolith of the Church is being assailed by modernisers. Intriguingly, Sister Aloysius, apparently the most hide-bound, is the one least willing to subscribe to the time-honoured notion that members of a religious order should close ranks to protect their own. Although she lacks evidence, "experience" tells her that Father Flynn (Pádraic Delaney) is behaving improperly and she wants him out.
For this to sparkle instead of sputter, the balance of doubt needs to be precision-maintained throughout. But here it's not: we're mighty certain that behind all Sister Aloysius's squinty intensity lies a good heart, rather than a vendetta against twitchy Father Flynn and his oddly revealing tracksuit trousers. Molloy neatly suggests that the sister is tired of an oppressively phallocentric church hierarchy, but not so that she would jeopardise her school.
It strikes me as a cheap ploy to make the purported object of Flynn's attentions the school's first black pupil, as if this racial element automatically ups the dramatic ante. The opposite is the case, as attention is diluted away from the fascinating core topic of the abuse of power, in all its forms. Doubt: a disappointment.
• Until 12 January. Information: 020 7328 1000, www.tricycle.co.uk.
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Reader views (4)
Jimmy Porter's review reflects my experience of the play. The dialogue is original and highly entertaining, the story detailed, gripping and unguessable and the acting brilliant. Great production in a theatre with no "bad" seats.
- Niamh, London, 05/01/2008 19:49
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I agree with Jimmy Porter's review of Doubt, but is it really necessary to refer to Fiona Mountford's 'chubby' cheeks? Using personal insults only weakens his arguments about the play.
- Stephen, London, UK, 28/11/2007 18:02
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It seems to me that Ms Mountford would not know a good play if it came up and grabbed her by her chubby cheeks. Doubt is one of the best plays staged this year in London.
Sister Aloysius, played brilliantly by Dearbhla Molloy, is thoroughly dislikeable at the beginning of the play as she instructs her subordinate, Sister James (played by Marcella Plunkett) on the art of strict discipline and the necessity of distancing teacher and pupil. You suspect that behind the ribcage of this woman lies an ice bag where a heart should be.
What John Patrick Shanley does brilliantly is to slowly change our perception of her. Sister Aloysius’ certainty about father Flynn’s guilt seem at first a maniacal form of persecution and even when we begin to suspect she might be onto something, we are intrigued how she could find him out when the entire church’s male-oriented hierarchy is set against her.
In one of the most moving scenes in the play, the mother of the black boy pleads – against our expectation – with sister Aloysius to let the matter drop. Nikki Amuka-Bird plays the mother to perfection and through her performance we realise that the societal pressures on a black mother in early 60s America forces her to accommodate doubts rather than resolve them. In the performance I saw, the audience held their breath as the climatic confrontation between sister Aloysius and father Flynn unfolded. It is the stuff plays should be made of. Go and see it.
- Jimmy Porter, London, 28/11/2007 11:03
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Doubt is an 80 minute one act play that pits intransigent Sister Aloysius against the engaging Father Flynn. The Mother Superior apparently knows that some form of 'abuse' has taken place, with a younger nun confused as to what to believe. One vacillates as each side explains the circumstances (as does the younger nun). Although the boy never appears, the details as explained by his mother do come as a quite a surprise. This is an extremely absorbing production and is highly recommended.
- Kilburncat, London, 28/11/2007 09:43
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