REVIEW: An electric drama of doubt and dilemma at Dundee Rep
A brilliantly structured drama of suspicion, conflict and soul-searching within a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, the play contains moral complexities and an underlying political charge that are akin to David Mamet's 1992 opus Oleanna. The play pits Sister Aloysius (the austere, conservative principal of the fictional St Nicholas Church School, played by Ann Louise Ross) against Michael Dylan's seemingly liberal and compassionate priest Father Flynn.
Add to this Sister James (a young and idealistic teacher who is caught between her own instincts and the influence of Sister Aloysius) and Mrs Muller (the mother of the sole Black child in his class, whom Sister Aloysius suspects is being sexually abused by Father Flynn). The tensions and conflicting motivations build powerfully in Shanley's script.
Designer Jessica Worrall's set – an apparent concrete monolith which represents Sister Aloysius's office, but opens out, with unexpected versatility, to become the school's garden – becomes a charismatic fifth character. This production captures brilliantly the sense of uncertainty that runs like an erratically woven thread through the play.
The principal – a Second World War widow who turned to Holy orders – embarks on a campaign to bring down the suspected priest armed with nothing more than circumstantial evidence (the child, Donald Muller, returned to Sister James's class following a one-to-one meeting with Father Flynn with the smell of alcohol on his breath). We, the audience, like Sister James, are pulled in various ethical directions as Flynn's plausible explanation and moral indignation clash with Aloysius's seeming certainty.
READ MORE: A ballet full of audacious dances of death and defiance
The testimony of Mrs Muller – regarding Donald's home life and his need of both the school and Flynn's support – introduces another level of ethical, social and racial complexity to an already electric narrative.
The doubt of the play's title belongs to us, the audience, as much as it does to the characters themselves.
All of which demands acting performances of great nuance and depth. Ross's Aloysius has granite hardness and a line in brook-no-argument sarcasm that is often bleakly comic.
Coupled with her underlying decency and moral bravery, the character manages – in Ross's canny characterisation – to split one's sympathies in two.
The excellent Dylan impresses similarly in the role of Flynn, who the actor plays – as if on a theatrical high-wire – balanced precariously between persecuted innocence and perilously concealed guilt. The anguished equivocations of Sister James and the painfully acquired pragmatism of Mrs Muller (whose soul is caught in a vice constructed of racism, poverty, domestic abuse and a burning desire to save her son from all three) are depicted excellently by Emma Tracey and Mercy Ojelade respectively.
Shanley's play is a resonating and delicately balanced thing of beauty. Thankfully, this excellent Dundee Rep production tackles it with all of the necessary subtlety and confidence.
Until May 10: dundeerep.co.uk
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