Hurts So Good

What's wonderful about watching an actress like Nesbit take on a writer like Shanley is the way Shanley's words seem to come from an intelligence other than his own — which is to say from his characters, from individuals operating with free agency — and the way a great actress can capitalize on the opportunity, and seem to make decisions before our eyes. This isn't a showy thing. It's organic; the prosaic stuff of everyday life. As Father Flynn says to Sister James, when James asks whether parables are less worthy of interpretation than things that happen in real life: "No! Things that happen in life are beyond interpretation." Most people try to interpret them anyway, and to watch Nesbit is to watch that struggle, writ large.

This is even more true of Pat Bowie, a working actress whom I don't believe we've previously seen in South Florida. Bowie portrays the mother of the boy Father Flynn may or may not be molesting, and in her single scene onstage, there is more blood, guts, fear, rage, love and turmoil than in most theaters' whole seasons. I wish I could say more, but I can't — it would give the impression that something's pinned down, that there is some fact you can hang your hat on to think you know what Doubt's all about. You don't. Even after seeing it, you won't really know. You'll just know that there's a lot to think about, and that it probably means something.