Sep. 21, 2011 - Issue #831: The Sandwich Issue

Doubt

'What do you do when you're not sure?' intones Father Flynn as the very first line of Doubt, a parable. The crux of John Patrick Shanley's play is that we're to spend the next hour-and-a-half wondering, gravely, uncertainly, about him.

Set in the '60s and centered on a iron-willed Bronx nun who suspects the popular, younger pastor Flynn may have violated a young child—she doesn't have any proof, just a very intense feeling and a few suspicions—the unanswered question certainly had pull over Leigh Rivenbark, who's chosen the script as his thesis production for the U of A's MFA directing program. As he notes, the script, which has a pulitzer and a major motion picture adaptation to its name, pulls at least some of its power from the fact that the answer never really comes. It's up to us to weigh Flynn's guilt.

"That's the million-dollar question," Rivenbark laughs. "John Patrick Shanley hid that answer from everybody except the director and lead of the original broadway production. He also directed the movie, and he told Philip Seymour Hoffman the answer as well, but he never revealed it in any interview. And of course, that's the first question I had, because how can you direct the play without knowing that?

"If everybody leaves thinking, 'He's guilty,' or, 'He's innocent', it defeats the purpose of opening up a dialogue about the real themes of the play," he continues, "which are certainty versus doubt, this kind of courtroom culture we live in right now which is obsessed with certainty and obsessed with who is right and who is wrong."

Rivenbark hails from the east coast, where he spent the past few years as the artistic director of Theatre New Brunswick. His time there was largely spent eliminating the company's massive deficit—which he managed to do, but it took putting security first: Rivenbark was aware he was making safer artistic choices, and taking less risks. Now that he's here, split between polishing Doubt and starting prep to direct The Rocky Horror Show at the Citadel—"In the mornings I'm working with transvestites, and in the afternoons I'm working with nuns," he laughs—uncertainty is something he's eager to muck around in.
 

To play his Flynn, Rivenbark's enlisted Doug Mertz, who has an answer for himself, of course, as to Flynn's innocence or guilt. But even with that hidden from the rest of the cast, at their request, Rivenbark notes, the script still requires a careful handling even if it never outright states the answer.

"We've had what we call the 'guilt meter' in rehearsals," Rivenbark explains, "where if he goes too far over, then we know in the next moment he has to come back and make choices that lead the audience to believe he is innocent."
 

Thu, Sep 22 – Sat, Oct 1 (7:30 pm)
Directed by Leigh Rivenbark
Timms Centre for the Arts, $10 – $20 vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus