Never, in more than two decades of watching performances in the 3,000-seat Civic Theatre, have I experienced a moment there when you could actually hear a pin drop.
Never, that is, until Wednesday. In scene after scene of John Patrick Shanley's metaphysical thriller “Doubt,” various pairings of four expert actors screwed the tension so tight that the big audience seemed to be literally hanging on their every word.
Headlining the cast, which gives just five more performances here through Sunday, is the great Cherry Jones reprising her indelible, multilayered performance as Sister Aloysius, a parochial-school principal who thinks a popular parish priest may be preying upon his flock.
DATEBOOK
"Doubt"
8 tonight, 2 and 8 p.m. tomorrow, 1 and 6 p.m. Sunday;
Civic Theatre, 3rd and B Street, Downtown;
$19-60;
(619) 570-1100, (619) 220-TIXS or www.broadwaysd.com
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If anything, her interpretation of the starchy, suspicious nun has taken on new colors since she originated the role at Manhattan Theatre Club, transferred in the play to Broadway, and deservedly took home every available 2005 theater award for her riveting performance.
Jones – and actors Chris McGarry as Father Flynn, Adriane Lenox as the boy's mother Mrs. Muller, and Lisa Joyce as the naive foil Sister James – have had to externalize their performances and scale their projection to the often-cavernous theaters this road show will visit. At more than three times the size of the Walter Kerr Theatre where “Doubt” played on Broadway, the Civic is far from ideal for such taut psychological drama with a deep spiritual depth charge.
But though it has lost some of its warmth and intimacy, “Doubt” still delivers its explosive cultural reverberations, even as it leaves in doubt the guilt or innocence of the fictional Father Brendan Flynn.
Set in 1964, the play opens with a sermon by the priest who, in his green vestments, turns the audience into his working-class Bronx parishioners. His parable centers upon uncertainty and the solace even a doubter can find in community.
Stepping into the role originated by the excellent, Tony-nominated actor Brian F. O'Byrne, Chris McGarry creates a more-blunt, yet less-guarded priest – one whose athletic build and dimpled smile prove more charming – or seductive, depending upon your point of view.
Nearly every moment of McGarry's fine, arms-wide-open performance, including that opening sermon, can be read at least two ways. Flynn's gruff concern for his students, like Sister James' natural wish to be comforting and close to hers, seems part of the fresh air let into this church-centered neighborhood by Vatican II.
But the boys' visits to the rectory and Flynn's talk about perhaps taking them on camping trips have an ominous edge – given what we know now about how pedophile priests stalked their victims.
Jones' stiff-backed Sister Aloysius appears in the second scene, in her office, where she and Sister James chat in a spirit of both benign comedy and veiled power struggle about teaching methods. Joyce's childlike Sister James wilts and weeps at criticism, with the older nun's reactions revealing her rigid (or wise?) approach to education-as-vigilance.
Shanley laces the early scenes with comedy – and the delicious absurdities of old-school Catholic education. The well-placed humor – and Doug Hughes' meticulous direction – build a shrewd structure turning on the same dramatic irony as “Oedipus Rex.” Toward the end, Sister Aloysius repeats: “In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one turns away from God.” But now, like Oedipus, whose demand to know the truth proves his own undoing, Sister Aloysius pays what for her is the ultimate price: She loses her faith.
Jones is a master of the withering glance during her confrontations with McGarry's Flynn. While she at first amuses the devoted priest, their scenes beginning in laughter and nervousness become shattering struggles. So too, with Lenox's heartbreaking (if slightly garbled) performance as Mrs. Muller.
At the Civic, the final nun-priest confrontation moves perilously close to becoming a shouting match. Standing toe-to-toe, Sister Aloysius pulls no punches. In fact, McGarry's Flynn briefly clenches his fists as if he's thought of slugging her. But with another of those withering glances at his shoes, which have come much too close to her own, Jones' nun signals for him to back off. The scene is so beautifully directed, each pause calibrated, that like a receding wave, it builds to a crescendo of stillness when she declares “I will step outside the church.”
The tragedy for Sister Aloysius is that once she sees through the culture of clericalism and steps outside it, she cannot go back to the solace of faith in God. In the real world, the tragedy for her church remains: whether nuns like Sister Aloysius spoke up or not, were right or not, the Catholic hierarchy didn't listen.
Playwright: John Patrick Shanley. Director: Doug Hughes. Set: John Lee Beatty. Costumes: Catherine Zuber. Lighting: Pat Collins. Music and sound: David Van Tieghem. Cast: Cherry Jones, Chris McGarry, Lisa Joyce, Adriane Lenox.
Anne Marie Welsh: (619) 293-1265; anne-marie.welsh@uniontrib.com
