Sister’s expression of Doubt
ACTOR Brid Ní Neachtain says Sister Aloysius, the main character in the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning drama, Doubt, at Cork’s Everyman Palace Theatre from Feb 28-Mar 3, is “a meaty role”.
The play, set in 1964, is produced by Town Hall Theatre and Decadent Theatre Company. The plot revolves around the suspicion that a priest had improper relations with a school boy. Written by American playwright, screenwriter and director, John Patrick Shanley, a film of Doubt was made in 2008, starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Shanley directed the film, which he dedicated to Sister Margaret McEntee, a Sister of Charity nun who was Shanley’s first-grade teacher. He modelled the character of Sister James on McEntee.
James is naive and impressionable. She is a contrast to Neachtain’s character, Aloysius, a Bronx school principal who is a tough disciplinarian. Aloysius suspects the young Father Flynn of abusing one of the 12-year-old male students in the school.
Shanley renamed the play Doubt: A Parable. There is a lesson to be learned. The play opens with a sermon by the much-loved Flynn, who addresses the importance of uncertainty. “Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty,” he says.
Aloysius conflicts with Flynn when she learns from James that there had been a one-on-one meeting between the priest and Donald Muller, the school’s first African-American student. Is Flynn inappropriately involved with the boy? Or does the allegation, made in the presence of James, spring from the suspicious mind of the ageing Aloysius?
Neachtain says that when the play is over, the audience will have more questions than answers — more doubt than proof. “It asks if you can judge people. If the allegation in the play went into a court of law, it wouldn’t stand up. But Sister Aloysius thinks she’s right. She very much represents the old guard, while the priest has a new way of thinking,” she says.
Aloysius is a black-and-white character, says Neachtain. “Her language is really concise and to the point, with short sentences. She doesn’t mess around. There’s no shade about her. The challenge for me is to fill in the blanks.”
Neachtain says it’s important for her to get into the mind of her character “to make her real.” Is she in any way a sympathetic character?
“Probably not, but she has her own reasons for not being sympathetic. She’s in a working-class community. She thinks it’s a cruel world and she wants to educate the kids and prepare them for this world. She doesn’t have any time for dance or art. But she genuinely feels that her way is the right way,” she says.
There is no neat resolution to this play. “I think that’s brave of the writer. It asks if we can judge others. It also raises the question of the Church. Father Flynn is Sister Aloysius’s superior. There’s the question of the hierarchy of the Church and whether the hierarchy protects each other,” Neachtain says.
Neachtain is glad that she hasn’t seen the film. “Theatre and film are totally different. So much can happen in a close-up that you don’t have in theatre,” she says.
In her 50s, Neachtain is happy to play a strong older woman. “Roles for women in theatre are always a problem. That’s because the writers are mostly men. You’re either playing an ingénue or a very old woman. There’s a real problem trying to find strong roles for middle-aged women.
“Only a handful of playwrights write meaty roles for women of my age. Brian Friel comes to mind.” (Neachtain played Rose in the world premiere of Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa at the Abbey Theatre, as well as at the Royal National Theatre and on Broadway.)
Neachtain, a native of Galway, fluent Irish speaker and board member of TG4, was a member of the Abbey Theatre Company until 1999. “I really did my training at the Abbey, starting as an assistant stage manager. I also worked on sound and observed the actors. I got an overall picture of theatre. From there, I got into the company and have been acting ever since,” she says.
Married to Abbey Theatre director, Fiach MacConghail, Neachtain says that while she attends plays with her husband, they don’t spend their time obsessively discussing theatre. She doesn’t know what she will do after Doubt. “I recently finished playing Little Women at the Gate, which was lovely. I also did a cameo role for Rásaí na Gaillimhe on TG4. Acting is a tough existence. You’re only as good as your last job. We’re living in tough times. When people talk about the recession, I always say ‘welcome to our world.’ Actors have always been in recession.”
