DOUBT: A PARABLE Opening Night Critics' Reviews

John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award®-winning Best Play returns to Broadway for the first time in nearly two decades. “An inspired study in moral uncertainty” (The New York Times), this modern classic stars Academy Award® and Tony nominee Amy Ryan and Tony winner Liev Schreiber in a staggering new Roundabout production directed by Scott Ellis.

The production opens on March 7 at the Todd Haimes Theatre, formerly known as the American Airlines Theatre.

Deadline is positive:

‘Doubt’ Broadway Review: Amy Ryan & Liev Schreiber Resurrect A Modern Classic

https://deadline.com/2024/03/doubt-broadway-review-1235847662/

"That the play holds up as well as it does – and it really does – is due in large part to a top-tier cast that the Roundabout Theater Company has assembled, an ensemble that keeps us guessing from beginning to end. As most in the audience will know, Amy Ryan was a last-minute fill-in for an ailing Tyne Daly, and she takes to the role (and the stage) as if she’d been prepping for months. Her performance betrays not a hint of eleventh-hour jitters."

2 1/2 stars from NYP:

‘Doubt’ Broadway review: Nun play still scorches — even in a so-so revival

https://nypost.com/2024/03/07/entertainment/liev-schreiber-doubt-broadway-review-nun-play-scorches-even-in-a-so-so-revival/

"As Ryan’s Aloysius clashed with Flynn in her office, I had never felt a theater be so sympathetic toward the accused priest. I even saw supportive finger snaps at his self-defense.

That response could be because Schreiber exudes such a warm, paternal energy that never feels sinister or remotely creepy. He acts rationally and makes a reasonable case for his innocence. You couldn’t say that about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in the 2008 film co-starring Meryl Streep.

Or perhaps the shifting sands are due to Ryan’s take. Aloysius is never likable, per se. She’s admirable — a defiantly old-world Catholic who resists the modern changes the church was making in the mid-1960s.

But Ryan plays her with a “danger Will Robinson!” roboticism that cools down the icicle even more. This is, after all, a woman who casually tosses off lines like “Innocence is a form of laziness.” Ryan is more pesky than ferocious, more another-day-in-the-rectory than larger-than-life.

Both are valid choices. Both are strong performances. That the play, which never tells you the full truth, has grown more ambiguous is fascinating. However, the pair of actors just do not click."

Theatremania is positive

Review: Doubt Returns to Broadway in a Solid Revival

Amy Ryan, Liev Schreiber, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, and Zoe Kazan star in the Roundabout Theatre Company production.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/review-doubt-returns-to-broadway-in-a-solid-revival_1732466/

"Having directed the cast to these honest and unpretentious performances, Scott Ellis does nothing to reinterpret the way we see and hear Doubt. David Rockwell’s gliding, twirling set facilitates quick scene transitions set to the sound of boy sopranos (sound by Mikaal Sulaiman, who does offer an impressive 360 soundscape in the Haimes). Costume designer Linda Cho delivers austere clerical garb. Kenneth Posner’s lighting creates the indoor-outdoor world of the play, with light gorgeously streaming in from high windows in the opening tableau. It’s all first-rate, but none of it reinvents the wheel — and that’s OK."

Holden in Vulture is mixed, or at best a lukewarm positive (and personally I agree with her take the most).

Doubt Returns in a Traditionalist Production

https://www.vulture.com/article/theater-review-doubt-returns-broadway.html

"in this production, Doubt feels conspicuously steady. As an earnest and much-decorated emissary from the early aughts, the play seems almost nostalgic, a familiar object rather than a galvanizing event. It’s always been a period piece...But it’s not so much the play’s 1964 setting as its 2004 vibes that make it feel a bit frozen in amber. Director Scott Ellis is happy not to push past the expected. David Rockwell’s set dutifully revolves between stony, ivy-twined cloister courtyard and massy mahogany office. Ryan wears the same severe bonnet and glasses that Streep and Cherry Jones wore before her. Mikaal Sulaiman’s straightforward sound design gives us crows cawing, children at play, and kyries between scenes. And, while one needn’t belabor the point, seven of the eight-person central production team are men. The famous faces onstage are new, but much of what’s been packaged here feels intensely, and intentionally, the same as it ever was."

"While Ellis’s ensemble doesn’t lag behind the play, neither are they quite pushed to light a fire under it. Ryan and Kazan often feel like they’re in slightly different shows, Ryan’s more subtly minimalist and Kazan’s more caricatured — the specificities of a scene, and the fact that Sister James is not just a soft heart but apparently a smart and compelling teacher, can sometimes get lost underneath her tremble and treble. Schreiber, perhaps ironically, is the most comfortable of the three. The “fuhgeddaboudit” accent heightens him just enough, while his square-shouldered physical ease keeps him rooted — this guy is definitely also the school’s basketball coach, and the kids probably think he’s, ya know, whatever, pretty cool. While I wasn’t sure I quite bought his Father Flynn’s having to take notes because he gets “too flustered to remember the details of an upsetting conversation,” Schreiber’s zero-on-the-Kinsey-scale presentation of the role is an intriguing one. "

Updated On: 3/7/24 at 09:21 PM

Theatrely is mostly positive, but criticizes the direction:

A Soul-Shaking Amy Ryan in DOUBT — Review

https://www.theatrely.com/post/a-soul-shaking-amy-ryan-in-doubt-review

"But Scott Ellis’ direction is slack where suffocating tension is demanded. A play that deals in considering the unthinkable must be given room, however gasping, to breathe, and key scenes breeze through without the pensiveness their particular ilk would pause to consider. The sisters’ near-wordless agreement that something awful has taken place, for instance, seems to bank on our previous knowledge of the plot rather than let its implications take hold."

DTLI Consensus: No Doubt about this one: just as relevant as it once was, Amy Ryan and Liev Schreiber go toe-to-toe as they resurrect one of the best plays of the century thus far.

10 positive (including the NYT), 2 mixed.

https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/doubt-a-parable/

Four stars from TimeOut

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/doubt-a-parable-revival-broadway-review-amy-ryan-liev-schreiber

"Roundabout Theatre Company’s Broadway revival, directed by Scott Ellis, is mostly very effective. Schreiber’s hooded quality as an actor—the impassioned voice that emerges from a hard-to-read face—is ideal for his role, and he excels at the sharp-elbowed eloquence of Flynn’s sermons. The confusion of Kazan’s sensitive and affecting Sister James, who respects Sister Aloysius but also resents her (“She’s taken away my joy of teaching”), is balanced beautifully by the cutting intelligence and wariness that Bernstine brings to her pivotal scene. David Rockwell's set and Kenneth Posner's lighting bring out the darkness that can lurk in impressive institutions.

This Doubt’s equilibrium is disturbed only by Ryan’s performance. It feels a bit unfair to say so: A highly gifted actor, she stepped into the production at the very last minute, when Tyne Daly took ill; with more time in the role, she may plant herself in it more sturdily. At present, however, Ryan does fine by Aloysius’s comedic moments—her Bronx accent seems pinched from Penny Marshall—but doesn’t bring quite enough weight to this seemingly implacable woman, the play’s all-but-immovable force."

These reviews are a bit stronger than I expected; I actually think Adam Feldman's review mirrored my experience almost perfectly.

Most of Variety's criticisms are about the play itself, which...is a take.

‘Doubt: A Parable’ Review: Liev Schreiber’s Performance Cuts Through a Somber and Confining Single Act

https://variety.com/2024/legit/reviews/doubt-review-broadway-liev-schreiber-amy-ryan-1235929589/

"what’s exceedingly interesting about “Doubt,” aside from Schreiber’s standout performance, has nothing to do with Sister Aloysius’ indication or righteousness or if Father Flynn is or isn’t a pedophile. Instead, the play highlights how easy it is for influential people to prey on the vulnerable and how the systems we revere are complicit in demonizing those with the most to lose, while shielding the powerful from harm and repercussions. Uncomfortable and thought-provoking, the themes of “Doubt” have never been more urgent. Yet, the moral lesson at the story’s center worked best in the 2008 film, when the performances and characters could stretch beyond the limits of one confining act."

It's so fascinating seeing the different takeaways from the production, which speaks to the brilliant ambiguity of the script. (I chuckled at Holdren describing Schreiber's "zero on the Kinsey scale" take because I absolutely thought he was a closeted gay man).

I do wish, as many reviews pointed out, that Ellis had imbued a bit more momentum and fire into the script. And unified the actors more on tone/style (I like the review that pointed out that no one is making a bad choice on stage, but that not all of these acting choices gel with each other or feel like they are in the same show). It seems like it just needs a very subtle, simple directorial nudge to push this production from just good, to great.

I was at today's matinee. Amy Ryan is a tremendous Sister Aloysius, especially considering she only had a week of rehearsal. The rest of the production doesn’t quite rise to her level, but the play is still a well-oiled machine.

In terms of directorial touches, one thing I did like is the use of Sister Aloysius' office window during scene transitions. She stands there watching over Father Flynn and Sister James at the start of their scene, while Father Flynn lingers there at the start of the final scene.