Dean Poling

Theatre Guild Valdosta wrapped a powerful run of “Doubt” last weekend.

It’s a thought-provoking show.

Set in 1964 at a Catholic school, playwright John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer-winning “Doubt” follows Sister Aloysius’ moral mission to expose Father Flynn’s perceived sins. Their personal battle is counter-balanced on the fulcrum of Sister James.

While an excess of certainty motivates Sister Aloysius, an excess of doubt leaves Sister James helpless.

Practicality motivates the mother of a boy whom Sister Aloysius believes Father Flynn has abused. The mother asks for proof before risking her son’s placement in a school that she believes is safer for him than public schools.

The conclusion of “Doubt” is not cut and dry. Some audience members will walk away thinking Sister Aloysius’ accusations against Father Flynn are baseless. Others will agree with her lone crusade to uncover his sins.

Still, the play offers no clear-cut answers. Even if you take a side, there’s more than enough shadow of a doubt that no one can be 100% certain of the side they take.

At least, that’s how it should be … maybe.

The Guild show is my third time watching a production of “Doubt.” Valdosta State University Theatre & Dance produced “Doubt” in 2008. The same year a movie adaptation was released starring Meryl Streep as Sister Aloysius and Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Flynn.

Having seen it three times, I’ve come to the same conclusion regarding who is right and who is wrong in “Doubt.”

My conclusion of right or wrong is irrelevant. It’s how each person perceives the play’s conclusion that makes for interesting conversations and debates on the drive home.

But watching “Doubt” this time, after the events of the past few years, I walked away with a different perspective on the play.

Convictions without evidence can cause harm. People who make accusations without proof can hurt others.

People who act solely on baseless convictions, people who believe their suspicions are infallible because they feel they are right, people who do not doubt their beliefs regardless of the lack of supporting evidence or the accumulation of opposing evidence, are not just delusional. But dangerously delusional.

Their lack of doubt can cause harm.

In our current era, Sister Aloysius seems to be the patron saint of election deniers, anti-vaxxers, coronavirus crusaders, defund the police advocates, etc. A patron of people who push agendas despite the evidence against them … all, without a doubt.

Yet, one could look at Sister Aloysius as a character who embodies doubt.

While she believes to her core without specific proof that Father Flynn has committed wrongs, it can be argued that she acts on doubts she has in the church system – doubts based on what she’s seen in the past, doubts in the patriarchal hierarchy, doubts we know will eventually prove true in the investigations into church abuse. As she notes at the show’s conclusion, she is wracked with doubts.

I don’t know.

And that’s the power of doubt. The good of doubt.

Doubt doesn’t mean we must remain idle. Doubt doesn’t mean we lack faith. Doubt does not mean we must live without convictions.

We should not reject doubt. We should embrace doubt. Because doubt leads us to question things, to seek proof, to want more evidence, to enlighten, to enforce, to strengthen our beliefs.

Doubt allows a measure of compassion, it offers a different perspective, another possibility, before moving forward, as best we can.

If we weigh them early and carefully, doubts can lead us in the right direction. If we reject them too early, if we are too late in recognizing them, doubts can haunt us.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.