{"id":20133,"date":"2017-11-09T08:28:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T15:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=20133"},"modified":"2017-11-10T22:07:54","modified_gmt":"2017-11-11T05:07:54","slug":"doubt-makes-persuasive-theater-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2017\/11\/doubt-makes-persuasive-theater-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Doubt’ makes persuasive theater opener"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Amanda Lackman<\/p>

Bobbi Hawk, left, Caitlin Hart and Dan Nickerson star in “Doubt: A Parable.”<\/p><\/div>\n

Nothing evokes the hazards of theatrical entrepreneurship like introducing the company\u2019s first season with a play called \u201cDoubt.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Yellowstone Repertory Theatre\u2019s maiden production quickly removed all doubt about the quality of its work, if not the sustainability of its venture. \u201cDoubt: A Parable\u201d was performed superbly and suggests high promise for the season to follow.<\/p>\n

Yellowstone Repertory Theatre is a project of three theater veterans: Craig Huisenga, artistic director; Dina Brophy, managing director; and Caitlin Hart, founder and a member of the artistic ensemble. The project has nonprofit status and a five-member board of directors.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoubt,\u201d directed by Huisenga, is the first production in a three-play season. Tennessee Williams\u2019 \u201cThe Glass Menagerie\u201d plays March 2-17, and \u201cCrimes of the Heart\u201d ends the season from June 8-23.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s quite an opening lineup. \u201cDoubt\u201d and \u201cCrimes of the Heart\u201d are both Pulitzer Prize winners, and \u201cThe Glass Menagerie\u201d is one of the great warhorses of American theater. A less talented ensemble might find the season ambitious to a fault, but Yellowstone Repertory is nothing if not ambitious.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to create an ensemble of actors, directors, and designers capable of mounting excellent productions of our best plays \u2014 classics, important contemporary works, women playwrights, and small-cast musicals,\u201d Huisenga said in a news release. \u201cThose are the kinds of plays we are most attracted to, and Billings doesn\u2019t get many chances to see shows like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s big talk, but Yellowstone Repertory\u2019s opening production delivered in a big way. The play by John Patrick Shanley ran for more than a year on Broadway, and Shanley also wrote the script for the movie version, which starred Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.<\/p>\n

The movie was only a middling success, perhaps because the play\u2019s tight intensity is hyper charged by the stage\u2019s small, sparsely adorned space. This is not a play that needs room to breathe; it practically grabs the audience by the throat.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>The movie remains unseen by this reviewer, but it\u2019s hard to see how even that formidable cast could have handled the roles much better than the Repertory Theatre\u2019s small cast. Dan Nickerson, who has been racking up local theater credits since moving here in 2011, plays Father Flynn, a priest at a Catholic school who is suspected of improper conduct with the school\u2019s only black student.<\/p>\n

The year is 1964, when a priest\u2019s word carries more weight than it has since the sex scandals in the Catholic priesthood that were highlighted in \u201cSpotlight,\u201d which won the 2015 Academy Award for Best Picture. Nickerson gets it just right: He comes across as sensitive, caring and just smarmy enough that he might really be guilty of doing something wrong.<\/p>\n

Equally praiseworthy are the performances of Bobbi Hawk as Sister Aloysius and Hart as Sister James. Hawk has appeared in many Billings productions, most recently in \u201cBecky\u2019s New Car\u201d at Billings Studio Theatre. Hart went on the Montana Repertory Theatre\u2019s national tours of \u201cDoubt\u201d and \u201cThe Miracle Worker,\u201d and in Billings she has played roles ranging from Mary Poppins to Honey in \u201cWho\u2019s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?\u201d<\/p>\n

As Sister Aloysius, Hawk is suspicious and uncompromising to the point of cruelty.<\/p>\n

\u201cInnocence is a form of laziness,\u201d she advises Sister Jane, a well-meaning young teacher who is struggling to adapt to the school\u2019s strict discipline. Sister Jane moves from willing pupil to doubting colleague to, at one point, incoherent screamer as she tries to carve out lives for her students.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all uniformly fearful of you,\u201d she confides to Sister Aloysius.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d the sister replies, unfazed. \u201cThat\u2019s how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Wanda Morales, who plays the black student\u2019s mother, lights up the stage, although she doesn\u2019t appear until an hour into the 90-minute show and departs just a few minutes later. She elevates the play’s moral urgency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere is your compassion?\u201d Father Flynn demands of Sister Aloysius.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowhere you can get at it,\u201d the sister replies.<\/p>\n

A great deal of plot is unscrambled in the play\u2019s final minutes, but nothing makes the title any less apt. The characters in \u201cDoubt\u201d are tightly sealed packages of uncertainty, questioning each other and themselves. Whether one reads the play as a commentary on changes that wrenched the Catholic Church in the 1960s or, perhaps, as a precursor to post-truth America, the message is powerful and persuasive.<\/p>\n

It is a brilliant piece of work, and the Yellowstone Repertory Theater performs it brilliantly.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoubt\u201d is performed at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 18 at the NOVA Center for the Performing Arts, with a Sunday performance at 2 p.m. Nov. 12. Prices range from $15 to $22. For information, go to www.YellowstoneRep.org<\/a> or call 944-4313.<\/p>\n

EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the “Where is your compassion?” quote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nothing evokes the hazards of theatrical entrepreneurship like introducing the company\u2019s first season with a play called \u201cDoubt.\u201d But the Yellowstone Repertory Theatre\u2019s maiden production quickly removed all doubt about the quality of its work, if not the sustainability of its venture. \u201cDoubt: A Parable\u201d was performed superbly and suggests high promise for the season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17],"tags":[6440,4233,380,4243,4241,6441,5555],"class_list":["post-20133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-billings","category-culture","tag-bobbi-hawk","tag-caitlin-hart","tag-craig-huisenga","tag-dan-nickerson","tag-dina-brophy","tag-wanda-morales","tag-yellowstone-repertory-theatre","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20133"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20166,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20133\/revisions\/20166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}