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	O'Shaughnessy: Doubts Linger over Request to Film in Naugatuck Waterbury Republicna-American September 29, 2007 http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2007/09/29/lifestyle/288037.txt The opening line in "Doubt: a Parable" is spoken by a priest. "What do you do," he asks, "when you are not sure?" Set in a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play centers on a flinty, dogmatic nun who suspects the popular local priest is "interfering with" a child in her school. "Suspects" is the key word here. Sister Aloysius is a rigid, authoritarian principal to whom moral uncertainty is anathema. What to do, then, when her female intuition sends up flares that the charismatic Father Flynn's involvement with a new boy is a little untoward? "Doubt," as Ben Brantley of the New York Times wrote, is "an inspired study in moral uncertainty" that just happens to involve a priest. It is also a study in power, male-female dynamics and race — the boy in question is the school's first African-American. To the principal of Salem School in Naugatuck and some of the Board of Education, it is about one thing: priestly pedophilia. Miramax Films would like to shoot scenes at the school, a showpiece of Naugatuck architecture, for a movie version of the play, which will star Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Principal Jennifer Kruge and at least two board members do not want the school used even as a backdrop. They say the subject matter is inappropriate for elementary school pupils.They are concerned that the film may force them to discuss sexual molestation with their children. Worse, they are concerned about filming the movie in Naugatuck, where a local priest is facing accusations of sexual abuse with a 15-year-old boy. This, by the way, is the town that eagerly served as Apocolypse Central in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds." Let's start with the obvious: Yes, "Doubt" is inappropriate for elementary school children, most of whom would be bored out of their minds by Shanley's demanding text. But nobody is asking the children to see the movie. Miramax simply wants to film there, a request for which they are willing to pay. No child will be strapped into a chair and forced to endure two of the country's most skilled actors reciting Pulitzer Prize-winning dialogue. Well, children are curious. They will want to know what movie is being filmed at their school. Reasonable enough. Any parent of a child under 10, to say nothing of an educator, should surely be well versed in the fine art of evasion. It is honest and direct enough to say the play is about doubt, and the question of what one does when one does not have all the facts. That, in itself, is a marvelous educational opportunity. One might even go further and explain that the play is about authority, or disagreement, or even race. All of this would be true and all of it lends itself to meaty investigation. Shanley himself does not spell out the particulars in a way more graphic than what is likely to read on a supermarket checkout line. He also leaves unanswered whether the priest is guilty. And what if the conversation evolves further into questions of sexual abuse? Children are most vulnerable for sexual abuse between the ages of 8 through 12 — grammar-school age. The National Resource Center on Child Sexual Abuse says the average age for first abuse is 9.9 years for boys and 9.6 years for girls. So, when, exactly, do we begin to discuss the dangers of sexual molestation with our youngsters? Too often, when it is too late. In a letter to the Board of Education, Principal Kruge argues that the film is not "developmentally understandable" for children ages 4 to 10. She writes of the play, "Its plot faces the dilemma of did or did not a young priest give wine to a student that could have led to other actions. This presents a challenge for it is my responsibility to filter what comes into our building for the betterment of the students, and this film would not lend itself for discussion." Now, somewhere, there may be grammarians who could diagram those sentences without turning themselves into pretzels. Clearly, the question of whether to film a few scenes for a movie at Salem School is hardly the most burning issue the school board confronts. The fact that a local priest is facing charges of sexual abuse is grimly coincidental. It grieves me, as a Catholic, to wonder where in this country there is not a charge of similar ugliness leveled at one of our priests. The man has been charged and remains innocent until the law can prove otherwise. Filming in Nautatuck will not change the facts of this case. Salem School in Naugatuck is a stunning building that has the opportunity to play a small part in what will likely be a brilliant movie. It should not confuse a business proposition with a moral endorsement. Contact: Tosh@Rep-Am.com.
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