Doubt (Amfivolia) John Patrick Shanley Play | Meli Theater Athens Greece

The scene is set at the America of the 1960s, right after John Kenedy’s assassination, when faith to values and social institutions were questioned. The play deals with one of the most common questions related to religion: how does doubt affect the mind and heart of believers.

At the Saint Nicolas catholic school, in Bronx, Ney York, in the year 1964, where everything is conducted according to Sister Aloysius’ austere directions, a strange relationship is developed between a priest and a young black pupil. He is the first black pupil in the school. When ingenuous Sister James notices the excess interest of the priest towards the pupil, she decides to confess it to Sister Aloysius.

Sister Aloysius, whose educational approach is based on the power of fear and discipline, takes on unravelling the truth, by pushing the priest to admit his intimate relationship with the pupil, with no evidence, but driven by her certainty about Father Flynn’s guilt.

Sister James however is convinced about the priest’s innocence and is in doubt, while Sister Aloysius maintains her first, firm belief.  Things are going to be even more complicated when the pupil’s mother shows up.

A senses of diffused uncertainty is floating in the air, influencing the audience in this challenging mystery where two nuns, a priest and the little black pupil’s mother come face to face with their beliefs and give a fight with judgments and verdicts. In this play there is no resolution, no catharsis, no proof. Everything lies in between silence, assumptions, glances, touches…faces.

John Patrick Shanley’s play was first staged in Broadway in 2004 and received many enthusiastic reviews. It has been awarded with a Pullitzer, a Tony, a Drama Desk Award and monay others.

Its cinema version released in 2008 made a great success, starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymoor Hoffman and directed by Shanley himself.

John Patrick Shanley about his play:
“When I started writing, it seemed to me that I was surrounded by a society perfectly certain for an awful lot of things. So, I decided to write a play about the fact that we can never be certain about anything. I wanted to point out that the nature of doubt tends to infinity, that questioning makes room for evolution and change, in contrast to certainty which leads to dead ends. There where certainty lies, conversation ceases to exist. I have not intended to tell audience what is right or wrong. I just wanted to trigger them into thinking and feeling, instead of predetermining what they are supposed to think or feel about all these.”