John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award®-winning Best Play has blazed back to Broadway starring Academy Award® and Tony nominee Amy Ryan and Tony winner Liev Schreiber. This “excellent new revival, directed by Scott Ellis, affords the pleasure of watching two supremely good actors going toe to toe” (The Wall Street Journal). “Ryan and Schreiber are electric on Broadway (Entertainment Weekly).”.
The fireworks begin as the exacting principal of a Bronx Catholic school—feared by students and colleagues alike—suspects improper relations between a charismatic priest and a student. She’s forced to wrestle with what’s fact, what’s fiction, and just how far she’ll go to expose what she sees as the truth. As the New York Post says, “It keeps the audience guessing and second-guessing through the play’s famous final line.”
Both precepts seem plausible, even if one is harsh and one loving, and both are chewily written. The entire play is like that: ideally worded, ingeniously structured, sinewy and swift. It never lets you, or poor Sister James, reach a conclusion as to which, if either, of her superiors is right. By the time Shanley takes the astonishing step of having Aloysius interrogate Donald’s mother — Quincy Tyler Bernstine, scoring big in a short but vividly counterintuitive role — you no longer know what you believe.
Director Scott Ellis is happy not to push past the expected. David Rockwell’s set dutifully revolves between stony, ivy-twined cloister courtyard and massy mahogany office. Ryan wears the same severe bonnet and glasses that Streep and Cherry Jones wore before her. Mikaal Sulaiman’s straightforward sound design gives us crows cawing, children at play, and kyries between scenes. And, while one needn’t belabor the point, seven of the eight-person central production team are men. The famous faces onstage are new, but much of what’s been packaged here feels intensely, and intentionally, the same as it ever was.
Digital Rush
Price: $48
Where: On the TodayTix app.
When: 9am on the day of the performance
Limit: Two per customer
Information: Subject to availability.
2005 | Broadway |
Broadway Transfer Broadway |
2008 |
Original Motion Picture |
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2017 | West End |
London Revival at Southwark Playhouse West End |
2024 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Doubt: A Parable |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Doubt: A Parable |
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Play | Doubt: A Parable |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Liev Schreiber |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play | Quincy Tyler Bernstine |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Amy Ryan |
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