nothin New Haven Theater Company Puts It All In… | New Haven Independent

New Haven Theater Company Puts It All In Doubt”

NHTC

Steve Scarpa.

What is the value of doubt? In directing John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play Doubt: A Parable, the latest offering from New Haven Theater Company, George Kulp finds that keeping uncertainty as part of the creative process is key to the dramatic possibilities of the play.

Rather than discuss the play as a group, Kulp has let his cast of actors develop their own views of the action individually, much as the characters they are playing do.

The play runs March 5 – 7 and March 12 – 14 at the English Building Markets.

Set in St. Nicholas, a fictional Catholic school in the Bronx, in 1964, Doubt centers on a clash of wills between a somewhat progressive priest, Father Flynn (Steve Scarpa), and a more conservative nun, Sister Aloysius (Margaret Mann). Caught between is a young nun, Sister James (Mallory Pellegrino), who sympathizes with Flynn but questions his leadership in light of allegations made by Sister Aloysius, having to do with Flynn’s relationship with a black student he is supposedly disciplining. Aleta Staton makes her NHTC debut as the boy’s mother, Mrs. Miller.

Margaret Mann and Mallory Pellegrino.

For Kulp, letting the actors come to their own conclusions about where their characters stand helps to stress the moral ambiguity of the play.

We leave it for the audience to decide for themselves,” Kulp says, not letting me worm out of him any sense of how he reads the play and which character he believes to be in the right. The play is so well-written that several different things are happening at once, with opposing forces and an undertone of controversy.”

Kulp stresses that the play requires that the audience keep an open mind”; indeed, one of the key aspects of the story is the problem of seeing past preconceived notions.” In watching the play it’s likely that the audience’s sympathies will change” as they get to know the characters and make discoveries about them. Kulp says his cast has been assiduous in working out the backstories of their characters to arrive at real and organic” grasps of their roles.

Originally, the New Haven Theater Company, which decides on which plays to stage based on group input and enthusiasm, was going to mount Doubt as a side project rather than a main production. But as they got into it they found that the play picks up speed like a locomotive” and should be more than enough show for their main stage in the English Markets building on Chapel Street. The production features three main areas of action, with the different locations indicated primarily through lighting — such as a stained-glass window for Father Flynn’s sermon.

Together with the spring production, The Cult, an original comedy by NHTC member Drew Gray, the current NHTC season features three shows treating themes that could be called religious.

It just happened that way,” Kulp says, it really wasn’t planned.” Though he allows that finding the question of belief at the heart of Conor McPherson’s The Seafarer, which the NHTC staged in November, may have strengthened the desire to do Doubt. 

Kulp, who has Catholic schooling in his background, has memories of being in school in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated — an event Father Flynn references in his sermon — and finds working on the play a way of revisiting those times. Seeing Mann and Pellegrino garbed in the habits of the Sisters of Charity sealed the deal. Kulp says Mann, who has acted in several NHTC plays and co-directed Almost, Maine in November 2013, is wonderful as the authoritarian Sister Aloysius, which also stirred up memories of the no-nonsense nuns of the day.

In its production history, the NHTC have shown itself to be skilled at choosing plays that showcase the troupe’s abilities, and Doubt seems a perfect fit: A small cast, a great script, meaningful dialogue, and themes that are still part of American discourse, whenever trust in our leaders is a concern. The plot turns not so much on religious belief as on what we could call politics, where tricks and subterfuge can be used to persuade. Who is right, and who is guilty? As Kulp sees it, the audience may decide based on how the cast plays it, and still be in doubt. 

Doubt runs Mar. 5 – 7 and Mar. 12 – 14 at the English Building Markets, 839 Chapel St. Purchase tickets here.

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