Finally caught the Broadway transfer DOUBT last night. This is the play about the nun who suspects the preacher of molesting a young boy. I can't account for why I have never seen Cherry Jones (stage actor extraordinaire who plays the nun) perform onstage yet... I have seen a lot of Broadway and Off Broadway plays in the past several years and somehow I have never seen a show of hers despite her considerable level of fame within the medium. For those who never see stage shows in NY you may have seen her in bit parts in
The Village, Erin Brockovich, and especially
Cradle Will Rock After having seen this much talked about show I can say that her hoopla is earned. She has that special stage magic that you can't learn, fake, or convey properly to those who haven't seen for themselves. The sort of 'born-for-the-stage' charisma. Hypnotic.
My feelings about the show are mixed. It's very good ...no mistake. But I wanted DOUBT to be "great" and it fell short I think. My principle problem with it was that I didn't think it was as ambiguous as it thought it was. The central conceit is that you don't really "know" and to the play's credit it does take some unexpected turns --there is one scene in particular featuring the child's mother--which really deepen it and make it noteworthy. But in the end I thought that both the actors and the playwright had made up their minds and in a play about suspicion, gossip, and the unknowable... I think that was a miscalculation. But, I don't want to be so critical because the 90 minutes fly by. The acting is superb. And I'm pretty sure it's going to win the BEST PLAY Tony. It's only competition seems to be DEMOCRACY.
