Cherry Jones, who originated the habit full of moral certitude that is Doubt’s Sister Aloysius Beauvier, led with her chin high in her determined crusade to oust the priest she suspects of “interfering with” a troubled boy at the Bronx Catholic school she runs with a fountain pen and an iron fist. For Karen Janes Woditsch, who stars in Writers Theatre’s current production, it’s all about the set of her jaw. Her Aloysius’s certainty isn’t haughty; it’s just strong.
John Patrick Shanley’s 2005 play, the winner of that year’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize, is staged here in an actual church hall at the Glencoe Union Church, while construction continues on Writers’ new venue just across the Metra tracks. Aside from allowing scenic designer Kevin Depinet the benefit of a real stained glass backdrop, the “site specific” aspect doesn’t add anything to William Brown’s effective staging, which gives Woditsch’s Aloysius a worthy adversary in Steve Haggard’s seemingly no-nonsense Father Flynn, whom the sister suspects took advantage of the school’s first black student.
The tightly plotted layout of Aloysius’s crusade, and its suggestion of the way a self-protecting church hierarchy created the decades-long tragedy of sexual abuse in the church, is gripping as ever. The sister’s certitude buckles ever so slightly in the final moments; what’s missing from the play for me, in every production I’ve seen, is a sense of where her hardness originates.
By John Patrick Shanley. Directed by William Brown. With Karen Janes Woditsch, Steve Haggard, Eliza Stoughton, Ann Joseph. Running time: 1hr 35mins; no intermission.