‘Doubt: A Parable’ brings stunning theater to Port Royal

Parable ... a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles ... a metaphorical analogy.

The Coastal Stage Productions presentation of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning, play “Doubt: A Parable” is a stunning evening of dramatic theater ... start to finish ... Full Stop!

Written by John Patrick Shanley, our presentation produced by the Coastal Stage Productions partners, Luke Cleveland and Rodney Vaughn, is first-rate.

This over-the-top piece of dramatic literature, first out and onstage in 2004 amidst enormous critical celebration, is deftly directed by Cleveland.

The play — which later became an award-winning film starring Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Viola Davis — will stop you in your tracks, take your breath away, and send you home with your own doubts, among other things.

At our preview performance the other evening, there was absolutely no doubt about the high quality of the CSP’s interpretation of the powerful script, in the directing, and the acting of a quartet of well known, highly talented actors, the Coastal Players.

Shanley’s at once broad and narrow themes of doubt will connect and resonate with each audience member’s focus on the storyline, as they consider doubt to which they may apply a religious or a personal philosophy, specifically, as it relates to beliefs about guilt or innocence.

This will also be the perfect time to add that the four on stage, on this evening, channeled their certainty, or uncertainty, peerlessly through those informed interpretations.

Further, you must know that those informed interpretations will artfully blend with issues of doubt or certainty that each audience member brings to the production — an evening of questions and answers, and further, what he or she finally chooses to believe, without doubt!

The issues

Here would be the appropriate time to point out that we all are aware of the worldwide concern — often forceful, even violent — about the Catholic Church and its handling of issues of improper advances among priests and youthful members of the church. Keep in mind, Shanley wrote this brilliant, compelling play, to be set in 1962, back in 2004 ... and now, in 2020, so many troubling outcomes continue to surface.

Attitudes about the role of women within the church were also problematic.

I point out these two major issues, from among many presented by Shanley, in order for you to note that these dominate concerns totally color the exquisite play action that follows. That important background information, prepares all of us for the way in which the four — Father Flynn, Sister Aloyisius, Sister James and Mrs. Muller, whom you will meet shortly — present their characters with their own careful consideration of their philosophical, religious, political and personal challenges of those times and places.

Shanley developed these four characters to gaze clear-eyed at philosophical and religious interpretations and practices that would lead to a proper, even successful outcome toward the future of St. Nicolas Church — and when applied to the administration of the church, would begin to become concentric with the messages from Vatican II. St Nicholas church and school was a bit behind the messages expressed in Vatican II ... in a triumph of understatement!

Flow of the show

The work may be familiar to an indefinite number of audiences, but clusters of Lowcountry theater-goers appear to know very well the flow of the show, and its ancillary details. Though times have changed since 2004, the issues presented for our 2020 consideration, and more typically understood currently, are just as concerning and require the same degree of thoughtful understanding.

The time is 1962, and the settings artfully suggest the church, the office and the grounds of St. Nicholas Church and School in the Bronx, New York.

We meet Father Flynn (Brooke Pearson) at the pulpit delivering his message. Gracious and patient, forceful, yet soft-spoken, we all like him immediately as he speaks about faith, with a parable on the side.

We then come face to face with the incredible presence of Sister Aloyisus in her office, offered commandingly by Gail Westerfield. Over time we are introduced to many of her complications, and she, in spite of herself, begins to reveal truths about her background and elements that provide the uncertainty that she works to overcome.

The particularly sympathetic Sister James (Julie Seibold), clearly anxious and earnest, is doing her best to be the sister she is working so hard to become.

During those early moments of conversation between Sister Aloyisus and Sister James, and later with Father Flynn, the complexity of the personal circumstances of the three begin to suggest that Father Flynn may have acted inappropriately toward a young student.

It is only after we begin to sense the direction of the thinking of Sister Aloyisis and her focus on removing Father Flynn, no matter what, that we meet Mrs. Muller (Paulette Edwards), the mother of the boy in question, and begin to understand her vulnerability, and later, her strength.

The beginning of change is the moment of “Doubt.”

The 90-minute, one-act play is propelled astonishingly through the direction of Cleveland, and by the actors on stage, who, over time, present, sometimes in spite of themselves, not only their assumptions about the storyline, but the points of view of their characters ... all with a spin about guilt and innocence and of their final outcomes.

The preview audience on the evening of my viewing offered a standing ovation, then left the theater, all questioning each other about the guilt or innocence of each of the four.

Everyone had an answer, but having revealed their first thought, commented that on second thought, considering issues of moral certainty, they experienced some form of doubt.

If you go

What: “Doubt: A Parable” by Coastal Stage Productions.

When: Jan. 24, 25 and 31; and Feb. 1, at 8 p.m.

Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. on Jan. 26 and Feb. 2.

Where: Coastal Stage at AMVETS, 1831 Ribaut Road, Port Royal.

Information: 843-717-2175; coastalstageproductions@gmail.com.

There will be a “Talk Back” beginning Jan. 24, when at the end of the production, members of the audience move closer to the stage, and are invited to ask questions and get answers from the director and cast members, who are positioned in a single row, stage center.

This story was originally published January 20, 2020 at 9:06 AM.