Alright, so I was originally going to do a full and proper review of the play, but since it's now been many days, and I haven't gotten around to it, I thought I'd do a shorter review, skipping whatever I don't feel like writing about.
Doubt is to date my favourite production by John Kelly. I have seen several other shows, and have found them all to be way overrated, with serious problems with directing, the choice of plays, and often even acting. This time his choice of play was pretty good. An interesting, intelligent play, that goes out of its way not to draw conclusions, or tell you what's right or wrong, or who is right or wrong. A play intended to leave you with doubts in your mind.
The cast was solid, with its weakest link being
Emmanuelle Zeesman, who left me feeling a little cold, though thankfully nothing worse than that. The highlight was surprisingly Natalie Fraser-
Purdy, whom I'd never come
across before, but she really brought life to her small part. Mary Ellis and Kris Joseph were very good, as expected, though Joseph didn't sparkle quite the same as he has in other productions I've seen him in.
Of course, this being a John Kelly production, the actors HAD to have accents, though luckily since this was set in the Bronx,
no one was butchering the Irish accent. The accent, although better than often, still missed the mark, and took me out of the experience somewhat, though again, not quite as far out as the use of Irish, Scottish, and English accents do. There's no good reason for the use of the accent, this same story could have been set so many other places and it wouldn't have changed a thing, the accent does absolutely nothing to advance the story, and should have been dropped.
Finally we get to the set. Oh the set! There are not enough words to describe quite how dreadful the set was. From a pure design point of view, it was clumsy, with all 3 scene sets being towards the front, in a straight line next to
each other. The
principal's office going for extreme realism, with 2 proper walls, and a door, a clumsily place filing cabinet that I suppose is supposed to extend the wall in our imaginations. The garden's wall is much shorter than that of the office walls, and looks like it's part of an elementary school production. It's a piece of plywood which has been painted to attempt to be a stone wall, only it hasn't been skillfully done, with its 3 tiny strands of "ivy" with evenly spaced, disproportionately small leaves, looks so out of place and fake, especially compared to the very realistic walls of the office. A green carpeting pretending to be grass, a few fake shrubs, with real dirt spread around them, and a little fake flagstone or two to signify paths leaving the garden, which move as the actor steps
across them. Finally we reach the rectory, which has only a pulpit. No wall whatsoever, no other props, no crucifix behind, only the cross "carved" onto the pulpit.
The lighting was crude as well. Just the most basic lights, with no obvious difference between sets (outside doesn't look any different than inside, rectory doesn't look different than office.)
I was sorry that this side of the show was so poorly done, because I found it to be highly distracting, and gave the show a whole cheap, amateur feel even though it really wasn't.
It's a shame that the basics of set building, painting, and props seem to be lost arts. If you can fake up a decent looking stone wall, get in touch with your local semi-professional theatre company today! They clearly need you, desperately!
