DOUBT

New Village Arts couldn’t have picked a better time to do this play than right now, when suspicion, distrust and downright hatred seem to be at their peak internationally.

Playwright John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt” takes place in a Catholic school in the Bronx where a new acolyte - a teacher named Sister James (Juliana Scheding) - begins to question the senior nun, the by-the-book Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Kym Pappas).

Also in the cast is beloved Father Brendan Flynn (Dr. AJ Knox), who has the nerve to request three spoonfuls of sugar in his tea and to note that “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” and even to suggest that “people should see us as members of the family rather than emissaries from Rome.”

Comments like those are distasteful to Sister Aloysius, who would like to find a way to remove him from her parish.

A new young student, Donald Muller, the parish’s first African-American, has been seen tasting the sacred wine at the altar. Sister Aloysius blames Father Flynn for this and demands he request a transfer to another parish. 

When Mrs. Muller (Sherrell M. Tyler) is told that Flynn may have touched her boy inappropriately, her response is simple: “His father don’t like him, and I bring him here, and you don’t like him.”

How can anyone survive in an environment like this? Will Sister Aloysius get her way or will saner heads prevail?

Playwright Shanley has fashioned a fascinating one-act play that seems to come and go in a flash, leaving playgoers with lots to talk about on the way home.

Kristianne Kurner has directed this fine cast impeccably, and the sets (Christopher Scott Murillo), costumes (Kevin La’Marr Coleman), lighting (Shelby Thach), sound design (Marcus Rio) and props (Sofia Cassidy) are excellent.

Do not miss this play. It runs through October 22.