Did he or didn't he?

By Bonnie Wells
Staff Writer

Published on July 04, 2008

Collapsing the world into black and white can make it seem more manageable. But reality comes in shades of gray. And certainty has let us down of late - the words "WMD," "slam dunk" and "You can just refinance when the adjustment comes due" come to mind.

"In days gone by, doubt was the province of the wise," said playwright John Patrick Shanley in a 2005 interview with Jeffrey Brown on PBS' "News Hour." The occasion was the announcement that Shanley's play "Doubt" had won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.

"Now it's perceived to be a sign of weakness," Shanley went on. "You're supposed to fire back your answer irrespective of what the other person is saying, and prevail. And I'd like to see a more spacious conversation."

Shanley invites audiences into just such a spacious conversation in "Doubt," in which the certainty of an old-school nun that a young priest has behaved improperly with a student plays out against an ambiguous landscape of events. In addition to the Pulitzer, the play won four 2005 Tony Awards, including Best Play, as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the season.

"It's the best-crafted play I've seen in the modern canon for eight to 10 years," said Linda McInerney, whose Old Deerfield Productions opens a two-week run of the drama July 10 at Reid Theater at Deerfield Academy.

"It's like a thriller, but with deep ideas and multiple emotions flying around all at once," she said. "There's also a lightness and humor to it. It touches all your senses."

McInerney directs the production, which features Maureen McElligott as the adamantine Sister Aloysius; Andrew Lichtenberg as the priest, Father Flynn; Marissa Sicley as a young teacher, Sister James; and Heather A. Lord as Mrs. Muller, the mother of the student at the heart of Sister Aloysius' suspicions.

Old Deerfield Productions has been synonomous with quality historical drama since 1989, when, under the aegis of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, the company began staging a production each summer in Deerfield. Recently the theatrical venture has assumed independent status and broadened its mission to include contemporary works and a lively year-round schedule. The company's original opera "The Captivation of Eunice Williams" by Paula Kimper and Harley Erdman, which premiered in 2004 in Deerfield and has since toured the East Coast and Canada, will open next month in Skopje, Macedonia, before touring the Balkans over the summer.

The musical "Still Life With Toe Shoes" by award-winning local composer Marisa Michelson will follow "Doubt" on the Reid Theater stage this summer, and other productions are in the works. But the company's aim remains the same, McInerney said - from the Web site: "to create, nourish, promote, produce and present high quality theatre art that challenges, entertains, heals, engages and nurtures our audience."

McInerney said "Doubt" made the schedule not only for its excellence, but because, like many communities, Western Massachusetts has had intimate and painful experience with the Catholic Church's pedophile-priest tragedy.

"I wanted to offer this play as a forum for discussion and healing," she said. "In a place that has been so harmed by the issue, the play allows us to come together in healing. We get to build community and connection, sitting in the dark together and going through this."

After each show, the audience is invited to linger for a panel discussion with the cast and representatives of the church, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the legal community.

Still, the play is "not only about the gray areas in the church scandal, but the gray areas in life," McInerney said. "Shanley is reall y about doing the deep personal analysis of the complexities of life, and to wrestle with doubt. In a statement she quotes him:

"There are two predominate ways of dealing in this country. There is the culture of doubt, and there is the culture of dogma. Both are remedies to the problem of choice."

He said the articulation of some of the most pressing issues of the day - reproductive rights, the war in Iraq - are actually dogma framed as choice, and he offers a suggestion:

"Don't fall for it. Responsible, thinking people do not lead a yes-or-no existence. Responsible, thinking people do not have to reduce complicated subjects down to 'for' or 'against.' "

Old Deerfield Productions presents "Doubt" July 10-12 and 17-19 at 8 p.m. with matinees July 13 and 20 at 2 p.m. at Reid Theatre at Deerfield Academy. Tickets are $20; $15 for students and seniors, available at The Northampton Box Office at www.nbotickets.com or by calling 586-8686; or at the Reid Theatre Box Office on the nights of the show.