Doubt (Broadway) (2024)

I've been to many Broadway shows, but this has never happened before. Liev Schreiber came out on stage in his priest garb and started his opening monologue. He got about a minute in and then paused. He repeated his last line, and it looked like he might've forgotten the lines. He then apologized to the audience and walked off stage. The house lights came up and we waited for ten minutes before the announcer said they were bringing in an understudy because Schreiber was ill. The play ended up starting 45 minutes late, fortunately it's only 90 minutes. The understudy Chris McGarry played Father Flynn in the original Broadway run. He knows the role, and has played in many John Patrick Shanley plays. And he was very good but I bought these tickets to see Liev Schreiber and Tyne Daly, neither of whom we ended up seeing. Tyne Daly. Tyne Daly had to withdraw from the production for health reasons before they even opened. I thought Amy Ryan was anyways good as Sister Aloysius but she is some 20 years younger than Tyne Daly, so probably plays the role very differently. Zoe Kazan is perfectly cast as the naive younger nun.

Doubt is an excellent play. I thought the movie, also directed by Shanley, was fabulous. And the stageplay has the same tensions and intensity. It's very tightly written, no wasted scenes, just four actors, just a few settings, a couple interiors and one exterior. What I think is really interesting about this play written in 2004 is that it takes place in the 1960s. In the 60s, we might see the play a certain way, but today we bring to it added context about the Catholic Church and its well-known sex abuse problem. The teaching artists kept saying it's a show about uncertainty but I disagree. Because of what we know about Catholic priests, we assume that Sister Aloysius is right. She has no doubts and neither do we about Father Flynn. The most tragic scene is the one with Mrs. Muller, who knows it too. But as a black woman in the 60s in the Bronx, she has other problems to worry about. She has to overlook it because she has no other choice. The scene hits harder if we think that she knows. Come the final scene, when Sister Aloysius says she has doubts, she's not talking about Father Flynn, she's talking about her faith. A play about a nun and a priest called Doubt must be referring to a crisis of faith. And yes, the absurdity of the Catholic Church is enough to shake a nun's faith.

There was an artist talkback after the show with the set designer David Rockwell--who apparently also has a career as an architect of high-end restaurants. I thought the set was fantastic.
 

The Plot Against America (2020)

David Simon's sleek adaptation of the Philip Roth novel is terrifying. It is a WWII alternate history Roth wrote during the George W Bush era, but it is painfully familiar in the Donald Trump era. America realized a version of Charles Lindbergh's fascist fantasy under Trump making it an especially timely adaptation. The first few episodes are a bit slow, but the finale is extremely intense. That drive to and from Danville, Kentucky is a masterclass in suspense. The 1940s production design is excellent. The actors are all great; I think Zoe Kazan is especially good as the Bess. From what I've read, Simon changed the perspective of the novel, which was originally told by older Philip (a stand-in for the author) remember his childhood. The show is rather third person omniscient, following the action of all the characters separately. It's more natural for a TV show, but it does feel like something is fundamentally changed by making it more impersonal. And the bleak ending of the show is more pessimistic. Now that we've lived through the Trump era and see that the racists have not gone away, Simon's ending is probably more realistic, appropriately cynical.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

The Coen Brothers' latest movie is a Western anthology. Comprised of six stories of varying length and depth. They are all humorous in one way or another. Some end happily, some don't. But all are entertaining. The stories have little to do with each other, sharing only the wild west theme. There is quite a decent amount of singing too--you never quite know what to expect. I must admit I did not understand the last story, but after reading more about it online, I realized juts how creepily dark and brilliant it is. Even if you're not into Westerns, it is worthwhile viewing.

The Big Sick (2017)

There's a few really great things going on in The Big Sick that just make you smile. Let's start with the obvious, we need more Asian-American stories in American cinema. South Asian men like Kumail Nanjiani and Aziz Ansari have broken the white stranglehold on rom-coms. Kumail is a fully developed character who must navigate his own heritage and underlying racism to get the girl. I think part of the reason the film lands so well with the audience is that it is based on a real, honest, autobiographical story. It is believable because it is never trying to simply make a statement. It's not a soapbox movie about racism, it's a love story. Kumail is likable, relatable, desirable--so the audience easily empathizes with him. The movie is intelligent and it brings freshness to the rather staid genre. It is rounded out by excellent performances from Holly Hunter and Ray Romano (it's nice to see him again).