Sydney Theatre Company Artistic Director Mitchell Butel’s selection of plays for the 2026 season has been cleverly curated with cutting-edge work alongside brilliant storytelling, direction and casting. Doubt: A Parable meets all those expectations.
American playwright John Patrick Shanley first premiered Doubt at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York City in 2004. The play went on to win the prestigious 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play.
Although not based on a true story, the play draws upon Shanley’s own experiences of being raised Catholic in the Bronx during the 1960’s.
The play rocketed to international acclaim with the release of the 2008 movie starring Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis.
The play is set in a Catholic School in the Bronx in 1964 and centres on the four main characters: Sister Aloysius, Father Flynn, Sister James and Mrs Muller. Sister Aloysius, the school’s principal, suspects Father Flynn of inappropriate behaviour towards Donald Muller, the school’s only Black student who is an altar boy. As the story unfolds, the audience witnesses the conflict between the Schools Principal, the young nun who teaches Donald, the boy’s mother and Father Flynn who denies all allegations of inappropriate behaviour.
Bringing this production of Doubt back to the stage and audience in 2026 is an important choice and challenge that was firmly met by the Director Marion Potts.
The truth is that stories like this do not expire. They become testimony to the truth and reality of lived experience. By definition a parable is ‘a short, simple story designed to illustrate a moral lesson, religious principle, or universal truth.’ And this play stands by that test.
An extraordinary play, resonating truth and brilliantly executed by the outstanding performances by its lead actors the performances by all four actors were riveting and compelling.
Casting Pamela Rabe and Sam Reid in the leading roles provided the gravitas necessary to revisit the painful and shameful history with which this play reckons.
Pamela Rabe continues to be a stalwart of Australian theatre and screen (Wentworth).
Sam Reid in his debut performance for the STC bought the nuance and ambiguity required of his character. Audiences will be most familiar with his work in The Newsreader and Interview with the Vampire.
Zindzi Okenyo (Director of Purpose) played Mrs Muller (the mother of the boy) and provided an incredibly strong performance and presence on stage in this role.
Sister James played by Shannen Alyce Quan held both an innocent and complex confidence in her portrayal of a teacher caught between truths.
The outstanding Production team comprised of Designer Bob Cousins, Lighting Designer Damien Cooper, Composer & Sound Designer Jessica Dunn, Associate Sound Designer Daniel Herten, Choral Coordinator/Repetiteur Lanneke Jones, Voice & Text Director Charmian Gradwell created a 90- minute play (with no interval) that never loses its emotional intensity.
The set was a four-part revolving revelation on the world of the school. It created an atmosphere where suspended disbelief was not required. You were in the room.
Music and sound combined beautifully to create a cathedral ambience whilst the costumes perfectly established the characters and the period.
The question of Doubt around Father Flynn’s behaviour towards this boy and his transfer between parishes which is at the centre of the Doubt is of course no longer an issue of doubt.
We now know that paedophile priests were moved from parish to parish after sexually abusing young boys.
In 2013, the Australian Royal Commission was established into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Commission identified nearly 2,000 Catholic perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exposed a systemic pattern and practice of moving offending priests between parishes.
For me personally in the 1980’s in Australia I had two boyfriends who were sexually abused by Catholic priests as children. At the time I thought these were isolated cases. The Royal Commission proved that to be otherwise.
And whilst the facts of this situation remain the nuances between what may be known and proven, understood and accepted are still as relevant today.
The play ends on a winter’s day and leaves the audience with no doubt that they have just witnessed a profound and extraordinary piece of theatre.
DOUBT : A PARABLE is playing at the Roslyn Packer Theatre till 2 August 2026.
Production photgraphy by Prudence Upton.
Approx. Duration 90 mins (no interval)
Content warning: Mature themes including child sexual abuse.
