In a turbulent time for live performing arts in Australia, with cancelled musical tours, shrinking orchestras and rising production costs as audiences spend more carefully, Sydney Theatre Company is one of the few that has managed to post a surplus. Through a mixture of funding and investments, careful programming and a few hits – including The Talented Mr Ripley and this year’s An Iliad starring David Wenham – the company is a steady port in the current theatrical storm, and nowhere is that steadiness more clear than this new, straightforward production of Doubt: A Parable.
Written by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck), Doubt takes place entirely on the grounds of a small Catholic school in New York’s the Bronx in 1964, where sharp-edged principal Sister Aloysius (Pamela Rabe) maintains strict standards for students and teachers. When the wide-eyed Sister James (Shannen Alyce Quan) raises a concern about Father Flynn (Sam Reid) meeting privately with a young boy from her class, Sister Aloysius – already suspicious of the more modern and folksy priest – is immediately resigned to the worst possible outcome. Father Flynn, however, insists he is innocent.
