Doubt, A Parable is a 2004 play by John Patrick Shanley. Originally staged off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club on November 23, 2004, the production transferred to the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in March 2005 and closed on July 2, 2006, after 525 performances and 25 previews. The play won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play.

 

A beam of spotlight centres on a priest. Peaceful. Solemn. "What do you do when you’re not sure’? he asks. ‘You look for God’s direction and can’t find it…"

 

 

This is Doubt: A Parable, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by John Patrick Shanley (and Oscar-winning film), brought to the Shanghai stage this summer by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center.

 

It's not an easy show to stage, nor a happy one to watch, (although there are a few laughs throughout). Set in a convent school in the Bronx in the 1960s - when the United States was in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, the story touches on the underbelly of the Catholic Church, race, sexuality and gender, with the focus on the conflict between the school's principal – the suspicious and conservative Sister Aloysius and the more doctrinally flexible Father Flynn.

 

 

Photo by: Yin Xuefeng

 

"Flynn-Doubt-Urban-Aphrodite"After hearing from younger ‘naive’ teacher Sister James that the priest has a one-on-one meeting with the school’s first African-American student Donald Muller, Aloysius believes Flynn to have sexually harassed the student. The play tracks her growing doubts as she attempts to confront the Father.