'Doubt' confuses

How can we form a judgment based on something that can't be known?

"Doubt, A Parable" uses this question to address recent sexual abuse scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church.

The show runs until Nov. 11 at Spencer Theatre in the Performing Arts Center. This play turns a divisive contemporary issue into a broader commentary on the nature of our own judgments.

Those anticipating either frenzied Catholic bashing or a reassuring defense of the priesthood will be disappointed.

Still, all might have left the theatre convinced their sides had been vindicated. For a play that's all about pointing fingers, "Doubt" points fingers everywhere.

Opening night at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre meant complimentary champagne, and the majority of the audience members were a couple decades past the legal drinking age.

Fellow students, I urge you to attend this play, if for no other reason than to lower the median audience age.

There were nearly as many sets as there were cast members. A nifty rotating stage cycled between a principal's office and parish courtyard, both packed with convincing details. A bare stage with stained-glass lighting suggested a chapel.

When Father Flynn delivered a homily to his congregation, it felt like an actual Sunday mass - minus the crying babies.

The story is built around three distinct personalities. Sister James (Gardner Reed) is a newly minted teacher/nun at St. Nicholas School, a '60s parochial junior high. She is wide-eyed, innocent, passionate about teaching and desperate to please her superior - a hardened nun named Sister Aloysius.

Laurie Kennedy plays Sister Aloysius with some of the oppressive authority of the penguin in "The Blues Brothers." She loves order, disdains secular comforts like Frosty the Snowman and methodically monitors her students' performances.

Eric Thal's Father Flynn is a jockish, young priest who really takes interest in Sister James' eighth grade students - especially the boys. The students are unseen throughout the play, present only as disembodied giggles as Father Flynn coaches free throw shooting techniques to his beloved male physical education class.

The principal, Sister Aloysius, alerts Sister James to her mistrust of Father Flynn's interest in a certain student. Soon a questionable situation materializes. Did Father Flynn take inappropriate liberties with a pubescent male?

Sister Aloysius, armed with what might be a personal vendetta, is determined to prove he did. Father Flynn furiously denies any misconduct.

Sister James displays an endlessly quivering lip and ever-tilting head amidst her indecision. Instead of choosing sides, she longs to return to a state of unknowing innocence.

Who are we to believe? Father Flynn, the manipulative priest? His cold-minded prosecutor, Sister Aloysius? Or, like Sister James, do we just want to bury the whole thing to keep our peace of mind?

Our opinions are influenced by our preconceptions - previously forged from what we read in the newspaper or saw on television.

gsnider@unews.com