Philly Fringe: 'Doubt' an impressive act of revelation

By Julia M. Klein
Philly.com
September 15, 2016

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20160915_Philly_Fringe___Doubt__an_impressive_act_of_revelation.html

In Doubt: A Parable, a fierce, humorless nun and a likable priest seem locked in a battle over repression and freedom in the Catholic Church. Among those caught in the crossfire are an innocent younger nun and a pioneering black student who never appears on stage.

The Way Off Broad Street Theater Company, capitalizing on the site-specific resonance and intimacy of the Arch Street Chapel, is mounting a creditable, involving production of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play as part of the Fringe Festival.

It's clear at first where the audience's sympathies will lie. Jason Cutts' Father Brendan Flynn is a handsome charmer, even if he has a dash of arrogance and a fixation on well-tended fingernails.

By contrast, Kris Andrews' Sister Aloysius is an uncompromising task-master, opposed to ballpoint pens, the (overly) passionate teaching of history, and, seemingly, modernity itself. In this production, Andrews' performance doesn't do much to right the balance: She's uncharismatic, awkward, and slow to reveal the fire beneath her ice.

But alongside the obvious ideological and personality differences, another contest gradually emerges: between a potential serial abuser protected by the church's apparent male privilege and institutional denial, and a zealous, if old-fashioned, guardian of the children in her charge.

Set at the fictional St. Nicholas church and school in the Bronx in 1964, this tautly written one-act also touches on more universal themes: doubt, certainty, and how we acquire knowledge - what the philosophers call epistemology.

Shanley cannily - even manipulatively - toys with point of view and audience emotions, in the process sometimes straining credulity. It's particularly hard to accept his depiction of a mother (well-played here by Volieda Webb) who seems not to care whether her adolescent boy might be a sexual-abuse victim - if the accused priest is otherwise kind to him and helps him become the first black student to graduate from this grade school.

Directing this local cast against the backdrop of the chapel's altar and well-chosen liturgical music, Pat DeFusco does an impressive job of mining the play's subtleties. Allison Kessler is particularly appealing as Sister James, the enthusiastic teacher (and audience stand-in) torn between her sympathy for Flynn's ideas and their personal chemistry on one hand, and her desire to please Sister Aloysius. She wants desperately to believe in goodness - but whose?

Seated in the chapel for Doubt, we become not just an audience, but congregants, obliged to choose sides. And the play reveals itself as not just a commentary on sexual abuse and cover-up, but, as its subtitle signals, a parable about the challenges of faith.

"Doubt: A Parable": Friday and Saturday and Sept. 23 and 24, presented by the Way Off Broad Street Theater Company at the Arch Street United Methodist Church, 55 N. Broad St. Tickets: $15. Information: 215-413-1318 or FringeArts.com.