Intimate yet vast, B&E Theatre’s immersive DOUBT compels and confounds

B&E Theatre (Breaking & Entering Theatre) has situated its arresting first production in downtown Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity. Built in 1847, the magnificent house of worship lies nestled in the hollow formed by the north end of the L-shaped Eaton Centre. Navigating to this hidden space on a dark, windy fall evening feels like a journey to another time and place. 

And indeed it is. As we take their seats at the front of the nave, organ music plays, and our gaze is drawn inexorably up, up, up to the words “Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty”, which frame the arch above the stained-glass windows in the stunning chancel. 

From this apex of theological certitude, eyes drop down to the theatrical uncertainty at hand – namely, DOUBT: A Parable  by John Patrick Shanley. The play won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and Tony Award for Best Play, and prompted a 2008 movie starring the thespian Murderer’s Row of Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis – all four of whom earned Oscar nominations. 

The self-described mandate of B&E Theatre is “taking a classic, award-winning play that is still incredibly relevant, and producing it in a new, exciting, immersive way.” DOUBT achieves this objective on all fronts. Shanley wrote the play to address the then-current “culture of extreme advocacy, of confrontation, of judgement, of verdict.” And in the 17 years since the play’s debut, toxic certainty has metastasized. The play’s uniqueness – and why it belongs in this particular venue – is that Shalvey chose to explore his contemporary concern in a historical religious setting: St. Nicholas Catholic church and school in the Bronx, New York, circa 1964. 

Delivering on B&E Theatre’s immersive intent, Director Stewart Arnott makes DOUBT an intimate personal experience within this holy space, whose vastness befits the scale of the questions being posed. To open the play, Brian Bisson’s vestment-garbed Father Flynn walks up unexpectedly from the back of the audience to stand at the front of the nave. As he begins a sermon, we are transmuted into his congregation. One by one, he catches our eyes as he speaks to us about the value of doubt – and the solidarity that would arise from knowing that our doubt is shared. As he explores his thesis, his questions reverberate thrillingly in the cavernous space around us. Feet planted on the same surface where we’re seated, the magnetic Bisson is at once coolly poised and earnestly warm. 

Next to appear are Deborah Drakeford’s Sister Aloysius, who runs the school, and Emma Nelles’ Sister James, a new teacher. They meet in Aloysius’ office, which is cannily realized at the front of the sanctuary through the simple addition of a door and desk. James is optimistic and guileless as she discusses her class. Aloysius’ sandpaper-coated certainty is coiled so tightly that it’s hard to watch. She sees truth that others cannot or will not see. And she knows no doubt. So she asks Sister James lots of questions – not to satisfy curiosity, but as pretexts to correct things that she knows are wrong.

In the process, she offers a litany of 1964-era complaints (about penmanship, the nature of teaching, and even of FDR trying to pack the Supreme Court) which have only increased their rueful relevance since 2005. Humorously anachronistic, her opinions are laugh-out-loud funny . . . until suddenly, they’re not.

“Innocence is a form of laziness” is a rebuttal she offers to James’ failure to assume the worst about her students or Father Flynn. Here the core conflict emerges: between Aloysius’ rigid otherworldly piety and Flynn’s sunnier, progressive modernity. And looming behind both is the dark legacy of the Catholic church. If you don’t know the plot of Doubt, it’s sufficient to note that it centers around a student at the school, and whether he is being victimized. The stakes of this personal drama become impossibly high for all of the principals – and their conflict keys off of the confidence they have in their beliefs and their actions – and their ability to entertain and live in doubt.  

A winning Nelles holds her own as the resilient, maturing Sister James who is battered between Drakeford and Bisson’s knockout performances. And as the student’s mother, a dignified Kim Nelson is stirring in her forthright, urgent advocacy.   

And it bears repeating one more time that the production makes wonderful use of the Church:  mostly by letting the space itself do the heavy work. Watch where Father Flynn’s second sermon is delivered from – and when. Watch who sits in which chair in Aloysius’ office – and when. And above all, listen to the arguments and the information. Listen for the truth. And listen to the doubt filling this sacred space up to the arched roof far above, and seeping inexorably into our minds, as we try to puzzle it out.    

The full title of Shanley’s play is DOUBT: A Parable. A parable, of course, is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. Jesus used parables like those of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan routinely in the Gospels. Like them, DOUBT is a teaching tale, but it’s far from simple. In Shanley’s words, “Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite – it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to live with a full measure of uncertainty. There is no last word. That’s the silence under the chatter of our times.”

You will emerge uncertain from The Church of the Holy Trinity into the courtyard behind the Eaton Centre. And thanks to this play, these performers and this place, that silence – which is almost deafening – will go with you as you make your way back to your life. 

Reserve tickets to DOUBT: A Parable on bneproductions.ca.

© Scott Sneddon, SesayArts Magazine, 2022