The Broadway/Off-Broadway Theatre Review: John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt at RTC on Broadway & Brooklyn Laundry at MTC Off-Broadway

By Ross

There is a crisis of faith at the core. Without a doubt, and it’s not about lost laundry in Brooklyn. The Doubt in question, and maybe something similar at that Brooklyn Laundry, unfolds before us to varying degrees and power. That internal crisis, deep and ingrained, is like a feisty weed that takes root and spreads with divisive subtlety through the souls that inhabit it. It plays with our balance and senses, in and around a laundromat in Brooklyn, courtesy of the Manhattan Theatre Club, and the courtyard of this deliciously detailed and thoughtful revival of Doubt on Broadway by Roundabout Theatre Company, the first since it premiered back in 2005.

Doubt: A Parable is a completely captivating and epically simple planting, like a nun’s habit, carrying heavy emotional weight in its blackness and purposeful plainness, and as directed with care and precision by Scott Ellis (Broadway’s Take Me Out), it winds its way inside your head with an invasive force and finds its fertile ground to settle the uncertainty within. A gentle telling sermon and an act of possible care are what ignite the play, delivering forth the determined and insightful words of playwright John Patrick Shanley (The Portuguese Kid; “Moonstruck“) inside a garden of restraint, as we dive into the crisis dilemma at hand.

Holding hard to the idea of truth as parable, the sermon, delivered engagingly well by the very compelling Liev Schreiber (Broadway/Donmar’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses), unwinds its restless mind force in the intuitive unraveling. It plays strong with my emotionally curious self as I started out my fascinating theatre weekend by delivering me most wisely into the first of two John Patrick Shanley’s plays; one renowned, and the other, something new, searching for its place, and finding it somewhat inside his Brooklyn Laundry.

With every choice and word spoken, from one soul to another, the Doubt and the actions that lead to that place, may cause trembling trouble tomorrow, we are told, and we see the truth in those words. Secrets, suspicions, and abstractionisms are drawn out of the thick air and find their unfounded formulations in a thought that doesn’t sit well. A restless mind and a curious suspicious idea play hard with one another in this epic revival of Shanley’s Doubt: A Parable, a play that garnered the playwright a Pulitzer and a few Tonys. Seeded from inside the years of sexual abuse headlines that have rocked the Catholic Church, this stellar revival digs its roots deep into the dirt of judgment, seen by the alert, piercing, and negative eye of the unbending righteousness.

Embodied by the miraculously good Amy Ryan (Broadway’s Uncle Vanya; RTC’s Love, Love, Love), the seed of suspicion is meticulously placed before the innocent, and watered by a strong uncomfortable desire by Ryan’s Sister to be right and on track. Ryan delivers the habit with stellar steel and determination, stepping up to the alter at the last minute when Tyne Daly had to withdraw from the play due to health issues just days before previews began. Ryan excels as the formidable Sister Aloysius Beauvier, a part made famous by Cherry Jones in the original production and by Meryl Streep in the 2008 film adaptation, and finds her own space to sit tight and strong in unfounded judgment behind that powerfully solid desk, unwilling and unwanting to see an alternative view just in case it derails the train of desired thought.

Her portrayal of the Sister, packing the undercurrent of context with a surprisingly cold edge, easily finds the right soil to take root in the mind of Sister James, played to perfection by Zoe Kazan (Broadway’s The Seagull). Delivering the desired impact, Ryan’s Sister floats in and out with a watchful eye and suspicious mind, on a gorgeously well-designed set by David Rockwell (Broadway’s She Loves Me) with delicate lighting by Kenneth Posner (RTC’s The Wanderers), perfect costuming by Linda Cho (Broadway’s Summer, 1976), and a solid specific sound design by Mikaal Sulaiman (Broadway’s Fat Ham). We watch in fascination as this unfounded accusation finds its fertilized bed to grow into a beast that has the potential to devour all, in ways unseen and unknown at the beginning.

The revival is a force to be reckoned with, played strong and tight with the provocative nature of blind intuition, uncertainty, certainty, guilt, and objective denial, unpacking the personal dilemmas of each soul that comes into contact with the accusation. Both sisters start to believe, to a different degree and manner, that Father Flynn (Schneider) may have molested an eighth-grade Black schoolboy. As the principal of that school, Sister Aloysius has decided to act, even if there is no proof beyond the suspicion. Kazan’s Sister James, the young boy’s teacher, wants to find an explanation, to understand and consolidate the possibilities, maybe to relieve her of guilt or to reestablish her sense of order and morality. She wants more than anything, at first, to be seen by her superior as worthy of her role at the school, but also to continue to believe in the goodness of those around her. And especially of the Father she admires, and in a way, is more like her than not.

The clarity of belief between these two Sisters doesn’t exactly line up with one other. The younger, more inexperienced Sister James leans towards trust and faith. Sister Aloysius lives and breathes in a more joyless rigid upright distaste for anything remotely tender, secular, or ultimately pleasurable, all the stances the Father seems to embrace. Her dissection of the Christmas favorite, “Frosty the Snowman” is brilliant in its deconstruction, and expertly reveals so much about the Sister to our utter amazement. The internal formulations live in that space where Doubt and confusion linger, especially as we bear witness to the phenomenally sharp performance of Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Signature’s Our Lady of 121st Street) as Mrs. Muller, the young boy’s mother. That surprisingly delicate dance, superbly written and delivered into the room between the Sister, her accusations, and a mother’s calculated response is one of the strongest combustible moments in this thoughtful play, unraveling another dimension that few saw coming. Its magnificence lies in its honest approach, one that overturns a Sister’s ideals without her even comprehending her impact.

Doubt: A Parable throws powerful ideas and metaphors up like feathers in the wind, creating compelling darkness where an interested compassionate face should and could have been. Father Flynn literally towers over the courtyard in a way that shifts the ground beneath him. But he is no match against the hardness and pointed assuredness of Sister Aloysius’s piety in her pursuit against the powerful. The dynamics elevate as the crow complains in the background (a metaphor for the Sister? or the Father?), as we watch the principled Sister slide back into the darkness of certainty and then Doubt. It tunes us into the dynamic of not knowing, delivering the 90-minute piece forward to a brilliant conclusion that keeps the great hand of the righteous pointing at the guilty (whomever you believe is the crow who should be holding that guilt) as Doubt most powerfully envelopes them all.

Another play by the great John Patrick Shanley, Brooklyn Laundry is getting a similarly top-notch folding at MTC’s New York City Center – Stage I. It’s a tenderly performed unpacking, but unlike Doubt, this play is only a small load, just under the required weight, in a much too large machine, engaging us with their cleverness and honesty, but failing to fully find a theme and formula to make us want or need to sit in this laundromat for the duration of this washing.

Forever spinning in a cycle of vague possibilities, Shanley throws an overabundance of dramatic stains in the matching, like terminal illness, death, and aloneness, without ever really formulating an authentic road to take the piece down. It wallows in unhappiness and despair, grief and depression, with nowhere to really go beyond a structuring that seems to focus its salvation on a problematic man who never really gives us the impression of solidness.

Like his equally light beginning of “Moonstruck“, Brooklyn Laundry finds its cleaning formula in the simplest of spaces, a laundromat owned by a charming seemingly sweet man named Owen, played with connectivity by David Zayas (MTC’s Cost of Living). He finds himself working the day shift because of an awol employee, then in walks the tense and combative Fran, played with compassion by the engaging Cecily Strong (Apple TV’s Schmigadoon!). She’s a regular with a store credit and a gloomy disposition, yet Owen, feeling some sort of connection to this woman, engages and asks her out for dinner. Fran doesn’t really know what to do with that. She has a life filled with guilt, sadness, overwhelming familial obligations, and a desk job that probably contributes to all the above. Her life is studio-apartment-recently-dumped-rough, with a dying sister whom she wishes she had gotten to know better when she had the chance.

Yet she agrees to the dinner, somewhat hesitantly, knowing that Owen has his own baggage and ghosts. And with a cosmic push from her dying sister, played to high heavens most wonderfully by Florencia Lozano (Signature’s Rinse Repeat), the two come together, finding organic chemistry in their discomfort, fear, and lack of enough grilled alternates. It’s a fragile coupling, based on a few sweet gestures, and a mouthful made for shedding mushroom armor and insults. There’s no chicken to be had here, so they forge their way forward into each other’s arms, hoping to find relief from whatever is ailing them.

The problem is the stains that are stuck to them are not so hard to wash out, especially when we can’t really see or know much about their composition. Owen and Fran give off a nice fresh scented engagement with one another, but no real heat or intimate chemistry, beyond what they swallow. The flirtation is fun, but without weight or staying power, it leaves us unsure when push comes to shove in the form of Fran’s other sister, Susie, played well by Andrea Syglowski (Primary Stages’ DIG), and all the dirty laundry she leaves at her feet.

Directed with a casual energy by playwright Shanley, Brooklyn Laundry plays out its flirtations on a rotating arena of formulas, designed in detail by Santo Loquasto (Broadway’s Hello, Dolly!) with effective costuming by Suzy Benzinger (Broadway’s Movin’ Out), straightforward lighting by Brian MacDevitt (MTC’s Love! Valour! Compassion!), and original music and sound design by John Gromada (Roundabout’s Birthday Candles). The dialogue floats with effort and ease, sometimes feeling overly fraught and inauthentic, while other moments, engaging and touchingly real. There’s magic in the finding, but sharpness in the mutual discarding, bouncing us back and forth in our connection to these two complicated characters.

Depth of the heart and attachment aren’t exactly offered here at Brooklyn Laundry like it is in his much stronger Doubt, but they do find some sort of organic quality in the interactions between sisters. Those feel true, even if the dialogue feels forced and overly complicated. The men in these women’s lives treat them poorly and are forever unreliable, just like the writing inside this play. There’s trauma and overwhelming difficulties in the sisters’ lives, but Brooklyn Laundry doesn’t offer its care or its condolences. Just an idea that men are both the problem and, unfortunately, seen as the connecting salvation, at least by Strong’s Fran. “You ghosted me. I didn’t hear from you for 10 days,” Owen complains like any selfish teenage boy might say, even after learning about the death of Fran’s sister and the diagnosis of the other sister. Still, Fran sees her happiness hanging on him, like a poorly pressed shirt at a not-so-great laundromat. Even when it’s clear he doesn’t have the ability to step up when he is required to. Is this really the cure for this predicament? Or a quick bandage that will eventually, long after we leave the theatre, lose its elasticity and fall off, dirty and discarded onto the floor? I’m leaning towards the latter, and I’m also looking for a different establishment to drop off my laundry. There’s no Doubt about that.