Doubt

 

The current production of John Patrick Shanley's play Doubt (starring Amy Ryan, Liev Shreiber, Zoe Kazan, and Quincy Tyler Bernstine) is not as good as the amazing original production from 2005 (starring Cherry Jones, Brian F. O'Byrne, Heather Goldenhersh, and Adriane Lenox), but that's okay. This well-directed, well-acted, solid production does justice to the excellence of the play. 

Liev Schreiber, Amy Ryan
Photo: Joan Marcus

And an excellent play it is! The story of a high school principal (Sister Aloysius; Amy Ryan) in the 1960s suspecting a priest (Father Flynn; Liev Schreiber) of "interfering" with a 12-year-old African-American boy, Doubt expertly shows how perceptions of guilt and innocence differ among observers, even when exposed to the same evidence. Once Sister Aloysius begins suspecting Father Flynn, she perceives everything he says and does as proof of his guilt; it's a case study of confirmation bias. (However, the fact that she finds him guilty with insufficient evidence does not prove he is innocent!) 

Doubt also examines sexism in the church, old ideas versus new, and how values can clash even when people are acting in good faith (if, indeed, they are acting in good faith). 

Then there is the mother of the boy, who is vividly aware of the benefits--and costs--to her son of being in this school. She lives in a world where difficult, horribly pragmatic decisions sometimes need to be made, and she has the strength to make them. Her one scene, an extended discussion with Sister Aloysius about Father Flynn's treatment of her son, is complex, surprising, and in many ways the core of the show.

Amy Ryan clearly depicts Sister Aloysius's rigidity and lack of humor. I was disappointed not to see Tyne Daly, who had to drop out due to health problems, but the level at which Ryan is performing--with virtually no rehearsal--is impressive. Liev Shreiber is good as the priest, but I expect more than "good" from Liev Shreiber. His sermons are remarkably bloodless. Zoe Kazan does sweet ignorance beautifully; her innocent face works in her favor. Quincy Tyler Bernstine is effective as the mother, though I wish there had been more fire in the scene between her and Sister Aloysius.

The design elements are a bit odd. The scenery is attractive but the scenic designer (David Rockwell) is not kind to people sitting audience right, with a wall often in the way of a clear view. And the director (Scott Ellis) is no better: we had the Zoe Kazan's back for much of the show and were given only two brief opportunities to see Quincy Tyler's Bernstine's full face. I don't know if "cheating" (that is, subtly moving one's body over time to be better seen by the audience) is considered old-fashioned, but it surely would have been welcome. The costuming is effective, except that Father Flynn's clothing was a little too nice; did the pants of priests in the early 1960s really taper so perfectly? The lighting is beautiful, clean, and subtle. 

My feelings about Doubt have evolved over the years, as thousands of priests have been revealed as serial molesters. I was more open to the idea of Father Flynn being innocent in 2005. However, Doubt is so well-written that I am still not 100% sure what I think. 

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Doubt is that, under all of the ambiguity and thoughtfulness and compassion lies a brilliantly smooth structure. The play is economical and its 90 minutes seem to take half that time. I suspect, and hope, that Doubt will be done over and over again well into the future. It certainly deserves to be!

Wendy Caster

1776

Here's the amazing thing: the musical 1776 is so solid, so excellent, that the creators of the current Roundabout production didn't manage to completely ruin it. Though they did try. 

When re-thinking a show like 1776, based on real events and people, there are two important things to keep in mind: (1) how much respect is owed to the people depicted, and (2) how much respect is owed to the original creators of the piece. 

Our so-called founding fathers were deeply flawed. One of the best moments in this production is Jefferson listening to congress read his Declaration of Independence (i.e., Declaration of Freedom!) while his slave dresses him. It's quiet, quick, and hard-hitting--and doesn't mess with the original show. It's also relatively subtle in a production in which subtlety is rare. 

Do Peter Stone (book) and Sherman Edwards deserve to have their work respected? Absolutely. The only legitimate reason to maybe mess with their show would be to make it better. This production doesn't, though at least--as said above--it doesn't completely destroy it.

The all-non-cis-male cast is fine as a concept. (There are many weak performances in the show, but that is due to bad acting and direction rather than gender.) The different sexual identities change the emphases and meaning by definition. For example, that gender is a performance is made vivid through women performing masculinity. So, okay, fine. The nontraditional casting is fine.

It's nearly everything else that's the problem. The direction (Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus) is ham-fisted and frenetic. Every moment is underlined and mimed and exaggerated and overdone. Some scenes come across as though a bunch of kids are putting on a show and making all the mistakes kids make: indicating, emoting, telegraphing. 

One example: the solo song "Mama Look Sharp" depicts the horrors of war quietly and subtlely--and breaks the audience's heart. In this production, the song is blared, and the entire cast is on stage, pulling focus. The decision to have one performer play the "Mama" of the song by rending her clothing and tearing her hair, sobbing, pulls even more focus, and makes the audience feel less rather than more. (Well, it makes the audience feel less grief, but more embarrassment.) 

Simply put, Page and Paulus did not respect the material, evincing a serious lack of judgment on their parts. If they wanted a musical with which to judge the founding fathers harshly and reframe the revolution, they should have written one. 

Wendy Caster

Marvin's Room

Marvin's Room lost me quickly. Perhaps it's because I've been dealing with bunches of doctors recently and they've been wonderful, but I found Marvin's 
Room's jokey, stupid physician who can't remember his patient's name and uses his teeth to open a sterile package to be offensive and anything but funny. Even less amusing are jokes about roaches in doctor's offices.

In addition, director Anne Kauffman utilizes pacing appropriate to a funeral, and while Marvin's Room is about death and dying, it's still supposed to be funny. The lethargy hastens the play's death, if not the characters'. Also, she allows Lili Taylor and Janeane Garofalo quiet, internalized performances that are possibly effective from the fifth row but come across as distant and boring from the rear orchestra. Worst of all, Celia Weston's performance seems one-dimensional and artificial, and that's got to be Kauffman's fault; Weston doesn't do one-dimensional and artificial.

The set is distractingly ugly and fails to effectively distinguish indoors from outdoors.

It may be that in the second act, things improve. I don't know. I wasn't there.

Wendy Caster
(highly discounted ticket; rear orchestra, audience left)

Love, Love, Love

This is not a review. I saw the first preview of Love, Love, Love, and a review wouldn't be appropriate. However, the show is already in excellent shape, and quite interesting, and completely worth writing about. Take my random natterings with a extra-large grain of salt, and beware: there will be spoilers.

Love, Love, Love is by Mike Bartlett, whose King Charles III was downright thrilling. It follows a couple of remarkably self-centered people from their meet-not-so-cute in the 1960s  (Act I) through their marriage and life with teenaged children (Act II) to their retirement years (Act III). If drama is about people learning or growing or changing, this is not a drama, although parts are quite moving. If comedy is about laughing at people who neither learn nor grow nor change, it's definitely a comedy. And parts are quite funny.

Into the Woods

Jim Cox

No, this isn't a review of the movie. I'm talking here about the Fiasco Theater production, which is currently in previews Off Broadway at the Laura Pels Theater. It's terrific: innovative, warm, funny, sad, infectiously goofy, and performed by a charming cast that lacks the studio-scrubbed pipes and carefully groomed good looks of the cast featured in the film. I'm paying the company a complement, by the way, and not implying that they're ugly--though if they were, that'd be cool, too. Into the Woods, after all, purports to be about our favorite fairy tale characters, but it's really about how messy and flawed and directly contradictory human beings are. Botoxed actors who wear their rags perfectly, and boast artful smudges on their faces, are kind of missing the point. 

So are productions (and films) that take the woods literally, at least as I now see it. Don't get me wrong: I saw the original Broadway production many years ago, and the film version about a month ago, and I thought both were fine. But neither one caused Into the Woods to work its way into my blood, brain, and soul the way that, say, past productions of Follies, Company, and Sweeney Todd have. I know plenty of people for whom Woods is top tier Sondheim. But me? I've just never understood what the fuss was about.