About the Play:
Doubt has long been a favourite of acting teachers
for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, Female/Female Scenes,
Female/Male Scenes, and Three-Person Scenes.
Doubt: A Parable is a full-length drama by John
Patrick Shanley. Suspicions surface at a Catholic school in the
Bronx about a charismatic young priest's ambiguous relationship with
a troubled young man – the school's first Black student. Absent
hard proof, Sister Aloysius, the strict principal, tries to protect
the innocent – but is she doing God's work or is her certitude
actually pride? Doubt is
a searing masterwork by John Patrick Shanley about of faith,
morality, and the complexity of truth.
Doubt opens amidst the social and political change of the
1960s. Sister Aloysius, the rigid, by-the-book principal of a Bronx
parish school, is more feared than admired by her students. Her polar
opposite seems to be the charismatic priest Father Flynn, who has a
natural connection to the pupils. Yet, beneath the surface of this
seemingly harmonious environment, whispers of discontent and
suspicion begin to emerge about Father Flynn's actions. But is there
hard proof of any misconduct? When Sister Aloysius learns of his
potentially objectionable interest in the school's first and only
Black student, the progressive priest and traditional nun are drawn
into a battle of wills. Doubts grow about his innocence or guilt,
motivations are challenged, and alliances are formed with possibly
irreversible consequences for all involved. Doubt: A
Parable is an exquisite, potent drama that will raise questions
and answers none, leaving the audience to ponder the nature of
certainty and doubt.
Why you should read this
play: John Patrick Shanley
– the Bronx-born-and-bred playwright – delves into the murky
shadows of moral certainty, with his characters always balancing on
the thin line between truth and consequences. This gripping,
suspense-filled tug-of-war between a priest and a strong-minded nun
dramatizes issues straight from today's headlines within a world
re-created with knowing detail and a judicious eye.
Doubt premiered in 2004 at the Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC)
in a stunning, sold-out production. It transferred to Broadway at the
Walter Kerr Theatre and won the Tony Award for Best Broadway Play,
New York Drama Critics Circle Award, The Drama League Award, the
Drama Desk Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. John Patrick Shanley
also wrote and directed a critically acclaimed film version of Doubt
which starred Meryl Streep as
Sister Aloysius and Philip Seymour Hoffman
as Father Flynn.
This brilliant and powerful drama has
become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and
workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school,
college, and community theatre productions.
Cast: 3 female, 1 male
What people say:
"A superb new drama written by
John Patrick Shanley. It is an inspired study in
moral uncertainty with the compellingly certain structure of an
old-fashioned detective drama. Even as Doubt holds
your conscious attention as an intelligently measured debate play, it
sends off stealth charges that go deeper emotionally. One of the
year's ten best." — The New York Times
"The best new play of the
season. That rarity of rarities, an issue-driven play that is
unpreachy, thought-provoking, and so full of high drama that the
audience with which I saw it gasped out loud a half-dozen times at
its startling twists and turns. Mr. Shanley deserves the highest
possible praise: he doesn’t try to talk you into doing anything but
thinking-hard-about the gnarly complexity of human behavior."
— The Wall Street Journal
"[The] #1 show of the year.
How splendid it feels to be trusted with such passionate, exquisite
ambiguity unlike anything we have seen from this prolific playwright
so far. Blunt yet subtle, manipulative but full of empathy for all
sides, the play is set in 1964 but could not be more timely. Doubt
is a lean, potent drama… passionate, exquisite, important, and
engrossing." — New York Newsday
"All the elements come
invigoratingly together like clockwork in John Patrick
Shanley's provocative new play, Doubt,
a gripping story of suspicion cast on a priest's behavior that is
less about scandal than about fascinatingly nuanced questions of
moral certainty. Something rare for this season: a laudable new
American play." — Variety
"A beautifully balanced drama.
Shanley is a writer working at the top of his craft, making the most
of a muted but evocative palette in the pursuit of truth's shadows.
Here, for the first time in a long time, is a play that is about
something." — Chicago Tribune
"An eloquent and provocative
investigation of truth and consequences. A gripping mystery, tightly
written." — Time Out New York
"A breathtaking work of
immense proportion. Positively brilliant." — Entertainment
Weekly
About the Playwright:
John Patrick Shanley is an American playwright,
screenwriter, and director. Shanley has written some two dozen
off-Broadway plays since the 1970s, but he is best known for Doubt,
which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. He has also written
extensively for TV and film, and his credits include the teleplay for
Live from Baghdad and screenplays for Five Corners and
Moonstruck, for which he won an Academy Award for original
screenplay.