In
our world of over-hyped mega productions, "Doubt" was greeted in the theatre
world and the world of letters with kudos and applause and rapturous joy. 2005
Tony Awards were showered upon this original production (the play, each actor
either awarded or nominated, the director, the production designers) and
playwright John Patrick Shanley garnered the 2005 Pulitzer prize for drama. Some lucky
among us saw the original cast Off Broadway, then more of us had a chance to
catch that cast when the play to Broadway in early 2005. Chicago now is a
recipient of the most recent wave of gifts: the original star Cherry Jones, and several Broadway cast
colleagues (standbys and/or understudies but Broadway nonetheless) are touring
the country with this gem of a play and have landed in Chicago for a short
while. You will have missed a great deal if you allow this production to pass
through town without seeing it: the production itself, the performances within
it, and perhaps as important as all of that, this representation of a grand
American theatrical tradition: "touring the provinces". Julie Harris
believes in it; the Lunts lived the life; Helen Hayes and Katharine Hepburn
honored us all by doing it. And now Cherry Jones brings her performance in the
role she created to us. An honor. Attention must be paid.
Subdued
gold, deep burgundy, dim lighting, nuanced newly refurbished original
architectural details await you in the LaSalle Bank Theatre. There is an
anticipatory buzz about the place and the production when you take your seat.
This venue is as gorgeous as any New York or London theatre has to offer. This
play and this production do it justice.
"Doubt"
is the story of a child who may or may not have been molested in a Catholic
co-educational school run by nuns and priests in 1960s America. This is a story
of adult perceptions, and the balance of doubt and certainty in their lives --
a theme introduced in the play's first scene as a sermon by Father Flynn (Chris
McGarry). The
action then circles around a young, ostracized, African American male student
we never see and whose words and perspective we never hear. Our young student
is in the class of the inexperienced and enthusiastic Sister James (Lisa
Joyce). Sister
Aloysius (Cherry Jones) has called her young colleague into her office to check in on her
class, to give the neophyte teacher pointers, and to inquire circuitously about
this young charge.
We
find that Father Flynn "has taken an interest" in young Mr. Muller.
Those few words set a series of thoughts and actions (and reactions) in motion.
This is a play of envisioned possibilities, adult expectations and responses to
possibly imagined, possibly real harm to a marginalized child. Class, gender
roles, and adult responses to moral considerations of right and wrong infuse
this marvelously original intensely American morality play. When the child's
mother Mrs. Muller (Caroline Stefanie Clay) comes in to talk with Sister Aloysius about the
Sister's suspicions, the way Mrs. Muller balances the Sister's concerns with
the needs of her child adds sophisticated nuance to this story, making it more
than a story of persecution and reprisal.
Sister
Aloysius is rigid and rigorous and full of surprising humor at herself and at
the world. She is as hard on herself as she is on other around her. Her views
on writing with the then new fangled ball point pens as opposed to fountain pens,
for example, are a metaphor for her view of education: "ball points make
them press down and when they press down they write like monkeys". The
task of education and adult's role in the world is to teach grace, to corral
loose behavior, and train the raw impulses of the children in her care to
behave as moral and upright and Catholic adults in the world.
This
closely crafted world of intensely and sparely lived lives, among nuns, among
priests, and the children and their families just outside the world of the
play, just off stage, is imbued by evil. Evil lurks for some characters just
around the corner, just at the edge of their consciousness. To Aloysius, the
innocence of the children and the innocence of youth is something that itself
needs to be shaken awake. Her job is to strengthen the resolve of each child in
her care and sister in her Order to be ever vigilant. She says to her young
colleague "innocence is a form of laziness". Life is a hard and
earnest slog for this hard and earnest and yet surprisingly humorous character.
She reflects upon (and justifies) her active stance toward thwarting evil by
not sitting by. She says "Innocence can be wisdom only in a world without
evil." She is compelled to act on her suspicions.
Aloysius
and Cherry Jones, this character and the actress portraying her, rule this
play, while the honed balance of all the performances allows the story to
shine. The set by John Lee Beatty is spare and efficient, replicating quite closely the
Broadway set on the LaSalle Bank Theatre stage. The lighting by Pat Collins is delicate and bold, in equal
measure -- you are reminded at the end of each scene that you are, in fact, in
a theatre and theatrical lighting pinpoints and highlights characters or stage
actions in stark silhouette. David Van Tieghem's sound design effortlessly
evokes a locker room full of animated boys or a solitary courtyard singing bird
with equal delicacy.
You
will regret missing this performance if you don't make it down to the old
Shubert Theatre. I myself will attempt to visit a second time before it moves
along on its tour.