John Patrick Shanleys - Doubt - A Review

The Boyfriend continue our descent into the Broadway in Chicago Series fetish. It really has been the best thing we've done for ourselves, not only do we get to see some great shows, but we get to see things we wouldn't typically see, this would be one of those plays.

Doubt at first had no interest to me, I had heard about Cherry Jones but hadn't heard much about Doubt other than it had won a few prizes.

Doubt is set in a 1964 Bronx Catholic School overseen by Sister Aolysious who thinks that Father O'Bryne has had an illicit relationship with one of the students, a male student. She has no proof other than a slight interaction that she saw between the priest and the student. She pulls one of her novice nuns into the conspiracy with her and draws information out of her and from the priest through her.

The performance was amazing, Cherry Jones was fabulous, you can see why she won the 2005 Tony Award for this role, the only thing that could have made the performance better would have been to see it in New York. Watching an actor portray a famous role is sort of like watching a great movie in the theater versus watching it on DVD.

Fortunately I've had the opportunity to see some great actors in person, I can now add Cherry Jones to this list. I've also had the opportunity to see Michael Crawford and Maria Friedman live in The Woman in White - in London, I've also seen Jennifer Holiday perform her role of Effie in Dreamgirls in person. Recently I got to see Charlotte d'Ambroise in the new version of A Chorus Line and Raul Esparza in John Doyle's Company.

There's just something about seeing that just makes it worth all that much more, if you've ever seen live performances you know what I mean.

Cherry Jones and the rest of the cast are spot on with their characters, except the young nun went in and out of her bronx accent several times, but not enough to really throw you off. Not like when we saw Saturday Night Fever in London - now talk about strange, a brit trying to do a bronx accent and not sound like a jew or a german.

If you've been thinking about doing something different, why not try a live performance.

This was a terrific show I would definitely give it 4 out of 5 stars, the only thing missing was a singing nun and a flying nun, those would have given it 5 stars!