Q&A about DOUBT, with CenterRep's Artistic Director Michael Butler

In an interview with Diablo, Michael Butler, artistic director of Center Repertory Company, discusses the profound human truths raised by Doubt: A Parable, which the company is presenting at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts through November 22. For more information about tickets and show times, click here.

Diablo: What do you think the play is trying to say? 

Michael Butler: There’s the context of sex abuse scandals that are so prevalent now that have their origins back in 1964, when the play is set. But that’s not really what the play is about. I don’t know if you could get that from reading the play, but it really is the context—just like the year it is set, 1964, which offers the social context of the play. The playwright builds on that.

There are other themes and issues that are far more important. In fact, John Patrick Shanley, the playwright, details those in his foreword to the play. He talks about why he wrote the play and he doesn’t even mention the church scandals until, like, the seventh paragraph. So that’s a clue right there. People might think it’s about sex abuse, when, in fact, it is actually a brilliantly written and constructed mystery play, not a who-did-it, which is the traditional question in a mystery play. This is more a did-he-do-it?

And taking a clue from the play’s title, the playwright leads us, the audience on a truly gripping journey of trying to figure out the truth. And what is the truth? In a good production of this play, with good actors, you don’t know. And the playwright very skillfully takes us through thinking, ‘he did it,’ then we’re like, ‘no, he didn’t.’ Then there’s a new twist, turn, revelation, and it’s like, ‘no he did!’ Or, still, “no, he didn’t!’

D: Yes, it was frustrating. When I was reading it, I just—

MB: —You just wanted to know.

D: I wanted to know.

MB: You’re so instantly involved in the characters and their relationships, which is, of course, the basis of all good plays. And you know, this play has two great characters in Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn. And the playwright is so good at the way he takes you on this twisty journey, the way he plays with your mind and your heart, in terms of what you believe. I don’t think there’s a false move in the play. Seriously, I consider it one of the best-written American plays of the last five years, if not longer

D: There’s a movie coming out?

MB: A film is currently being made with Meryl Streep. That will be coming out after our production closes …

Back to the question of what I think the play is really about.  As in all great plays, it’s about a lot of things. But it’s not about sex abuse or the Catholic scandals. For me, it’s more about the nature of doubt and that moment when we move from certainty to entertaining the possibility of not knowing. And it’s about a time in America, too, that reflects this uncertainty. I don’t think it’s an accident that Shanley set the play in 1964. American happiness and complacency, rightly or wrongly, are exemplified by the 1950s. In 1964, that era is drawing to a close and we’re about to enter an era of tremendous social upheaval, that began, I suppose, when the Beatles first played on The Ed Sullivan Show and peaked at the 1968 Democratic convention, when there were riots, and the Vietnam war was in full bloom and civil unrest and the civil rights movement—just a lot of major social unrest happening at the same time.

So in a way, it was a time when America itself as a country was leaving that era of certainty and about to enter into a tremendous period of doubt and questioning. So it’s a great time to set it. It’s a time that has meaning for a lot of people still. In 1964, Kennedy had been assassinated the year before. The impact of that was quite enormous, an act so disruptive to the social order. It’s just all those elements: Shanley picking that time period in American history, this setting of a Catholic school and the Catholic church, a very highly structured patriarchal world, you know—all those play to the strength of this story.

D: Even though it’s set in 1964, do you think Doubt has relevance for today’s times? 

MB: I’m surprised that more playwrights don’t write plays set in the past, whether recent or distant, because there’s no better way to say something relevant about current times than to point out something in the past that is just the same. To say something about our times in our times, that’s what the newspapers do every day and look how little impact they’re having.

I think he chose 1964 partially to be able to say something about America now. What is that? He calls the play a parable. A parable is a story with a lesson or a potential for a lesson. But you know, the play doesn’t answer this question you’re asking me. Shanley may be asking us to stop screaming and shouting and actually look inward and look at ourselves a little bit individually and as a community and as a country—just do some self-examination.

He may be asking us to expound the value of self-examination and embrace the discomfort that comes from letting doubt creep into you because he also says that doubt can be or is the beginning of growth. And when you allow yourself to give up the well-fitting suit of your convictions, maybe you’ll learn something new. Who can’t stand to learn something new?

D: So at the beginning of Shanley’s foreword, he says there is something silent under every person and under every play, there’s something unsaid. What do you think the thing that’s unsaid in this play? What’s the silent message that the playwright is trying to communicate?

MB: Well on a literal level, he never tells us whether the priest is guilty or not. That’s sort of a big part of the engine that drives the play, and I know from experience, that’s what people are talking about when they leave. They’re putting together the evidence to try to arrive at a decision that is correct and they want to know and they want to make the right decision. So there’s that. It’s somewhat surprising that Sister Aloysius, who has been so comfortable with her convictions, so well armed with what she perceives as so the truth, so unwavering—it’s interesting that at the very, very final moment, her certainty is called into question.

D: So as a parable, what do you think the lesson is?

MB: It might be, on a more simplistic level, don’t make up your mind too soon. But I think the greater point is to perhaps be comfortable with not knowing.
 

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