Doubt II
"Doubt": Heather Goldenhersh, left, as Sister James and Cherry Jones as Sister Aloysius. From the New York Production. Photo by Joan Marcus
The play itself was brilliant. As a playwright, to see each scene so clearly and passionately drawn, with clear, high stakes, conflicts straight-forward and deeply rooted in character, is to get a clinic in the craft.
John Patrick Shanley says he started with a title: Doubt. In a play about the virtues of doubt, there must be its opposite, namely certainty. Sister Aloysius, played at Seattle Rep by Candice Chappell, is certainty personified. As head of a Catholic school, she is sure of her fierce and rigid character, as well as the necessity of it. She rails at Sister James (Melissa D. Brown), a sensitive young teacher who obviously, according to Sister Aloysius, coddles her charges far too much. When Sister Aloysius begins to suspect that the local priest, Father Flynn (Corey Brill), is sexually abusing one of the boys, she quickly becomes certain of his guilt and swears to use every inch of her power to run him out of the parish.
To her credit, there seems to be little doubt (ha!) that Sister Aloysius' primary motivation is the protection of the children in the school. She is not out to get Father Flynn for personal, vindictive reasons, although she explicitly understands that the patriarichal nature of her world will stand against her when she makes her accusations. But after she bolsters her case against Father Flynn with the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence, her own conviction, and the reaction of Father Flynn to a lie Sister Aloysius concocts to trap him, she finally comes to see the flaws in her own fundamental certainty. The play ends with Sister Aloysius bending in pain at the flood of doubt that is finally assailing her.
The brilliance of the play is that Shanley leaves the audience just where the characters are: wanting to know whether or Father Flynn is guilty. And of course, Shanley doesn't tell us. With the sex scandals of recent years coming to light, it is easy to want to lump Father Flynn in with the guilty, but Shanley doesn't give us enough hard evidence to know. And here's the point: the uncertainty that tortures us as we seek justice for these wronged boys is what makes us human.
Shanley is arguing that it is our doubt that brings us together. Certainty divides. It seems obvious that the religious wars of history tell us that plainly. We know it even in our own small circumstances. Shanley wants us to see that in acknowledging our doubt, by giving it voice, by making our decisions with doubt plainly in sight, we join the human race in humility.
As Father Flynn says in the play (and I'm paraphrasing here), "When you doubt, you are not alone."
I left the theatre feeling better than I had when I entered it. It's not that I like my doubts...I'd gladly give them up to know evidentially of all I hope for. But there is a reality in voicing our doubts and misgivings. How the faith to move mountains and the doubt that keeps us humble intersect in our souls is a mystery to me, but in my doubt, I suppose God understands.
What do we do with Jamesm who says, "...he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind..."
8:14:11 AM 
