"Doubt: A Parable"
Grand Rapids Civic Theatre
Evening performances at 7:30 p.m. on June 4, 5, and 9-12
Matinee performances at 2 p.m. on June 6 and 13
$14-$25
grct.org, (616) 222-6650

Doubt: A Parable is a tight-fisted drama about a possible scandal involving a priest and a boy, an all too-frequent headliner nowadays. But Doubt doesn't succeed because it's timely; it succeeds because it takes place on shaky ground. The concept of doubt constructs the play's metaphorical stage: no one knows for certain whether the allegations surrounding Father Flynn and his fondness for a 12-year-old boy are true. Not even the director of the play.

"There are no answers," says Director Paul Dreher. "That's why it's called Doubt. I don't know how to tell what makes a play good. That's a job for college professors and academicians. But I can tell you that this play works because there are no easy answers."

Set at a St. Nicholas Church School in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt, historically, takes place toward the end of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, which, according to Dreher, "made great changes in the Catholic Church, and these were just beginning to be implemented or resisted."

But this play isn't so much about the Catholic Church writ large or the flare-up of abuse scandals as it is about the question of authority and a conflict of power.

"The plot is fairly simple, but the characters and their development is fascinating," says Dreher. "What we have is [an] orthodox old nun who wants dominance, and a progressive priest who embraces being a person to the people. The conflict is really about power."

So, too, it was for Doubt's playwright, John Patrick Shanley, who wasn't so much interested in the abuse scandals as he was in the way that authority effuses suspicions.

"I'm interested in hierarchies," said Shanley in a December 2008 interview with the New York Times, considering the themes of authority and abuse in Doubt. "I think they reveal societies. I'm interested in the military; I'm interested in the church. They hold up a mirror, and I'm interested very much in the where authority comes from, which is always a central element of hierarchy."

Doubt's success has substantially beefed up its playwright's résumé. The play earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2005, and later that year, Doubt's Broadway performances earned a Tony Award for Best Play of the Year. To top it off, Doubt became a major motion picture starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Flynn and Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius in 2008, and was an unignorable contender for an Oscar.

The local production of Doubt will feature a "first-rate cast," according to Dreher, with Rodney Teslaa as Father Brendon Flynn, Rose Ann Shansky as Sister Aloysius Beauvier, Jessica Kreeger as Sister James, and Ruth Ann Molenaar as Mrs. Muller, and will be staged at the Grand Rapids Civic Theatre.