DOUBT @ Centaur leaves room for some doubt.

Doubt-A Parable, by John Patrick Shanley, is produced by Centaur and directed by Micheline Chevrier. It is put up in the small space and plays until the 29th.

Set in 1964 in a Bronx Catholic school, Doubt deals with many human virtues and faults, and some inhuman sins, of the mind, heart and body. One thing the play doesn't do is leave us any doubt that it is a great piece of writing and is still very relevant today, within society and all the scandals surrounding the church.

If you have seen the film version that came out last fall, with Oscar nominated performances by: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, Viola Davis and Amy Adams, you saw a very solid and well produced interpretation of the play. Admittedly these are four of Hollywood's greatest powerhouse talents, ergo hard to go up against. The writing lends itself to feeding the cast of stars with great material, and with the text accompanied by such great actors it would be difficult not to have an equally great production. With this stage production of the play opening while the film is still on the big screens, a comparison is inevitable. I was eagerly anticipating this production and anxious for it to blow me away, the power that the screenplay has on the performances delivered in the film unfortunately is not equally transferred onto the Centaur stage in this production.

The production starts out strong and at a good pace delivering some 'laugh out loud' moments, however it drifts from the dry humorous opening to a slower pace midpoint and a slight dramatic tension, helped by a good sound track, remains through the rest of the play. The lighting is really well designed and is the most important element in bringing this production to the professional level it sets out to attain. The set design has some very questionable choices and is way too stark with too few elements to support the text and create a credible environment for the characters. A desk facing upstage so the character has to present her back to us whenever she's seated becomes frustrating to the point that it undoes the message it was initially intended to send. Costumes are adequate, but we're talking two nuns and a priest, so no big challenge here. The performances of Brenda Robins and Lina Roessler are very solid, and their accents and voices as well as Alain Goulem's are spot on and help to hold our attention. It is Lucinda Davis's portrayal of the mother Mrs. Muller however, that is the most powerful and has the most memorable effect on us.

Where this production commits the 'cardinal sin' is in the overall direction. The blocking is not very challenging nor creative, with actors walking in and out of center stage moving from left to right with a few props back and forth it all becomes very tedious. All the action is centered and no attempt at using the available space. The props, including a totally awful fake tree (that represents a garden) and a crow on a stump, (that seems to have been forgotten as it never got moved from DSR) are barely elaborate enough to fill the demands of the piece. The monotony of the entrances and exits with actors visibly waiting for sound queues of door knocks and phones to ring reminds us of a mediocre high school production and are not elements worthy of a Centaur stage.

What was most frustrating was watching, or rather not being able to watch, the face of Sister Aloysius (Brenda Robins). If you're as unfortunate as I was to be seated audience left side of the stage, you rarely if ever got to see her face; Hidden under the bonnet of her habit we are robbed of her expression throughout most of the play. Since she is the lead and has the best lines this is really unpardonable. (It was the nuance of Steep’s subtle expressions that won her the 15th Oscar nomination she got for this role.) Throughout most of the play, whenever both the nuns are facing off against each other we are only given half of the performance to enjoy since we only get to see half of their faces; rarely are their lines delivered to the audience. This is so frustrating for a piece that begs for delicate subtle nuance from the performances.

I'm left not able to recommend this production of the play over film.