Doubt: A Parable has always been a powerful play for me.
Seeing it again at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) during this season reminds me of how powerful and relevant it is.
The setting maybe is in 1964 New York, but the moral references and dilemmas are still so relatable in this day and age, especially with what is happening around the world right now.
Doubt: A Parable is about power, conservatism vs progressiveness, the power of gossips, the power of make believe, the hypocrisy of moral high grounds and ironically, the relative powerlessness of the concept ‘doubt’ despite the title of the play.
Written by John Patrick Shanley in 2004, and once adapted into a screenplay equally powerful, Sydney Theatre Company’s lates attempt in staging (last staged by STC in February 2006) did not disappoint.
I personally felt that if Doubt: A Parable did not set its stage within a Catholic parish, the play, even though sharply written with a tightly knitted plot, will not hit as hard. When perception and assumptions seemingly based on a religious order doctrine overrode the necessity for proof and the existence of reasonable doubt, collateral damage is ensured. Does this sound familiar?
As the curtain raised in this STC production with the opening monologue, the tone is set and we knew that we were in for a ride. Sam Reid’s performance as Father Flynn was so likeable that when you saw what he went through during the course of the 90 minutes, you couldn’t help but feel for him and makes you even more dislike Pamela Rabe’s Sister Aloysius. Pamela had once again proved that why she is one of the crowning jewels in the Australian theatre scene. Her Sister Aloysius was played to perfection, with small details, including her walks, her hand shaking, her tone and her mannerism completely reflecting the character’s journey. The contrast between the strength and the weakness of that character is so 3 dimensional that you were just naturally pulled in by her. The scene between Sam and Pamela in the office was just so intense that I could help but lean myself forward from my seat and held my breath for it to take everything in.
Although Doubt: A Parable has four characters, it was a story about three persons mostly, with the fourth person as an outsider who puts the audience into a different outsider perspective and calling out Sister Aloysius’ hypocrisy. Shannen Alyce Quan’s performance was great but was ultimately restricted by the parameters of the Sister James character. She displayed the initial innocence and the breakdown of that innocence perfectly, but at the same time the character was upstaged by Zindzi Okenyo’s one scene crasher Mrs Muller. To this date I still remember the impact of Viola Davis’ performance in the cinema, so I was genuinely curious how Zindzi would manage that character. It was a different Mrs Muller but it was equally impactful. Viola Davis has a calm but imposing aura in her interpretation but Zindzi’s Muller natural and painful calling out of hypocrisy and heartbreak put her at times on an equal ground with Sister Aloysis despite knowing that she really did not have many cards to play but the pure gut-wrenching love for her son. I was truly moved by her performance and despised Sister Aloysis’ behaviour even more in the scene.
It was a perfect cast for a perfect story in my humble opinion.
Stage wise, it was a clever use of a rotating stage that banked in all aspects of the set. The set was built in a way that whenever it rotates for the scenes, you can still see other actors interacting with the space. That gives you a pseudo cinematic feel with different frames at the same time. The changing of lighting also reflects the requirements of the scenes. I could be thinking too much about it, but a lot of times, I felt that the best lit scenes were the darkest moments of the play, but as I said I could be reading too much into it.
In the sound department, there were a lot of chanting. While in a number of situations they were fit for purpose, but at times I felt the soundtrack was a bit too loud that it momentarily took me out of that world that was carefully crafted. Also, the mix of live chanting and pre-recorded soundtrack sometimes did not mix very well for me. I sometimes wish that they would use a little more weather like or natural environments effect in between music tracks, as the play did talk about seasonal change, and the seasonal change has a bearing on the story. The use of the crow sound that was directly referenced in the script was a very good example.
Overall, I really liked and enjoyed this production of Doubt: A Parable. I think the director Marion Potts and the crew nailed it for this one.
Doubt: A Parable is now on stage at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until 02 August 2026.
