By John Patrick Shanley. Sydney Theatre Company. Director: Marion Potts. Roslyn Packer Theatre. Jun 30 – Aug 2, 2026

Reviewed : 9 July, 2026 *

“Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty”.

John Patrick Shanley wrote Doubt in 2004 but set the play in the 1960s, a time when America and the world were beginning to see the beginning of political, religious and social changes that would shape the six decades that followed.

In 1964 Shanley was a student at a Catholic school run by the Sisters of Charity in the Bronx. “These women dressed in black, believed in Hell, obeyed their male counterparts, and educated us. The faith, which held us together, went beyond the precincts of religion. It was a shared dream we agreed to call Reality.” Doubt is about the frailty of that reality.

The play is set in St. Nicholas Church School in The Bronx. The Principal, Sister Aloysius Beauvier, is a rigid disciplinarian, ultra-conservative, averse to change. She even disapproves of using ball point pens.

Young Sister James is trusting and gentle. She is a dedicated teacher, committed to her students, keen to awaken them to history and literature but begins to doubt herself when Aloysius questions her caring classroom manner, or allowing the students to study art.

Father Flynn, a recently appointed young priest, is determined to bring more liberal ideas to the parish – even inserting some popular songs into the Christmas pageant. He coaches the boys at basketball, listens when they are in trouble.

When Aloysius learns from James that Flynn has had a one-to-one meeting with Donald Muller, the first Black student to be enrolled in the school, her doubts about the young priest are aroused. When she confronts Flynn in the presence of Sister James, he denies anything wrong with his actions. Yet the seeds of doubt begin to germinate – because in words from Flynn’s sermon that opens the play …

“Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty”.

Pamela Rabe inhabits the role of Sister Aloysius as bleakly as the severe black vestments she wears. She holds the character as rigidly as the commitment she has made to the church and its rules and constraints. She seldom smiles and shows little warmth except for a brief moment when she refers to an almost forgotten past.

She treats Sister James with condescending superiority, belittling her enthusiasm, teaching method and her youthful acceptance of change and admiration for Father Flynn’s more relaxed, caring approach to his work in the parish. She is similarly condescending to Donald Muller’s mother when she calls her in to discuss the boy’s relationship with Father Flynn.

Aloysius is a hard woman and Rabe makes her fiercely firm, unflexible in her cynical outlook on the world: “Every easy choice today will have its consequence tomorrow”.

The diminutive Sister James as played by Shannen Alyce Quan has overwhelming trust – in her church, in Sister Aloysius, in Father Flynn and the future. Quan makes her bright, optimistic, happily accepting the commitment to her vows and the children in her care. She is therefore intimidated at first by Aloysius’ position, but as her superior becomes even more judgemental, she begins to question …

“You just don’t like him! You don’t like it that he uses a ballpoint pen. You don’t like it that he takes 3 lumps of sugar in his tea … and you are letting that convince you of something that’s terrible…”

Best known for his work on screen, Sam Reid brings Father Brendan Flynn to warm, youthful compassion on the stage. Reid finds not only Flynn’s seemingly less restrictive “Vatican II” attitude, but a strong belief in the patriarchal hierarchy of the church. He makes Flynn disarmingly charismatic in his approach to the parish and the children, but patronisingly haughty in his reactions to Sister Aloysius.

When she invites him to discuss the Christmas pageant, he sits at her desk and takes charge of the meeting. When she then confronts him with an accusation of misconduct, Reid’s Flynn denies it with contempt and eventually reverts the true to androcentric base of the church: “You have no right to act on your own!” he says,” You have taken vows, obedience being one! You answer to us! You have no right to step outside the church!”

Yet Aloysius does! She calls Mrs Muller to the school and confronts her with her suspicion of Flynn’s influence on her son. But Muller is a strong woman too. She has lived with discrimination and fought hard for her son’s placement at the school and Zindzi Okenyo finds gritty strength and courage in her portrayal of Muller.

She stands firm in the face of Aloysius’s arrogance and rejects her suggestive accusations compellingly: “Sister, I don’t know if you and me are on the same side. I’ll be standing with my son and those who are good with my son. It’d be nice to see you there.”

Reid sustains Flynn’s denial of wrongdoing. Aloysius continues to fuel her doubt. And the fraught atmosphere in the grim school becomes as ominous as the bleak winter darkness that begins to descend on the tenements of the Bronx that frame Bob Cousins’ stark, austere set. With Damien Cooper’s misty light heralding a fluttering of snow, winter settles on the stage as coldly as the last word of the play.

The messages in Doubt reach beyond 1964 into a world that is questions even more strongly what is real, what is true, what to accept, when to doubt.

Shanley suggests that “Doubt requires more courage than conviction”.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine