Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
As my fellow critic Jackson McHenrypointed outjust last week, John Patrick Shanley is having a moment.
There was a reason for all that.
As a piece of writing,Doubtis practically a Death Star tractor beam for the American performing-arts awards complex.
Director Scott Ellis is happy not to push past the expected.
David Rockwells set dutifully revolves between stony, ivy-twined cloister courtyard and massy mahogany office.
Ryan wears the same severe bonnet and glasses that Streep andCherry Joneswore before her.
Mikaal Sulaimans straightforward sound design gives us crows cawing, children at play, and kyries between scenes.
And, while one neednt belabor the point, seven of the eight-person central production team are men.
Its the packaging part that hits hollowly.
In and of itself,Doubtis still a sharp and sturdy piece of writing.
Its also tonally broader than Ellis gives it credit for.
His characters have Willy Loman and John Proctor in their family tree.
For one thing, the headmistressknowshow scary she is and intentionally cultivates her own terrifying mystique.
What if this new kind of performance enthusiastic, friendly, curious, nurturing renders her own obsolete?
I will not stop.
Thats the delicate fulcrum on which the play balances, and it remains intact.
Schreiber, perhaps ironically, is the most comfortable of the three.
About three-quarters of the way throughDoubts concise 90 minutes, Sister Aloysius invites Donalds mother to her office.
I bless you with my motherly horror and grief.
Go forth and save my child!
You accept what you gotta accept and you work with it … Its just till June.
That line gets some gasps and always will, but Bernstine also gets exit applause.
Why do we think we know what we think we know?
And about whom do our assumptions ultimately speak?
Doubtis at the Todd Haimes Theatre (formerly the American Airlines) through April 21.
