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Host: The 2004 John Patrick Shanley play Doubt: A Parable won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award and the 2008 film adaptation starring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman earned five Oscar nominations. Now, the play is back on Broadway for the first time in nearly 20 years. At the center of the story are two formidable forces. There is Sister Aloysius, a nun and the principal of a parish school in the Bronx. She's stern and traditional and stubborn. She's played by Amy Ryan.

Sister Aloysius is very suspicious of the parish priest, Father Flynn. He's played by Liev Schreiber. Father Flynn is jovial. He relates to the boys. He wants to sing Frosty the Snowman at the Christmas pageant. Sister Aloysius doesn't like that at all and she doesn't like that he seems to have taken a special interest in Donald Mueller, the only Black student at the school.

Sister Aloysius suspects there's something untoward going on. Father Flynn denies it. A poor young nun named Sister James is caught in between her boss and her priest. Who is right and who wins the battle over the truth? Doubt: A Parable is running now at the Todd Haynes Theater through April 14th and I'm joined now by stars Amy Ryan and Liev Schreiber. Amy and Liev, it's a pleasure to have you on All Of It.

Amy: Thank you.

Liev: Thank you.

Host: I would love to start with Liev here. The full name of the play is Doubt: A Parable. I'm curious about that subtitle there. Can you give a sense of the kind of parable that the audience should expect to be confronted with when coming to see this performance?

Liev: We had Doug Hughes at yesterday's performance, who developed the play with John and was the director of the original production 20 years ago. Doug told us that the parable part was added at the last minute and I think it came out of a conversation they'd had about the Iraq War. At that time, Doug said he had this notion that the play was really speaking to-- aside from everything that was going on in the Catholic Church and the Boston Diocese and all that, that Doug felt that it spoke to the certitude with which we were approaching the Iraq War.

Host: The need for people to maintain some degree of doubt in their minds, a healthy degree of doubt when confronted with complicated situations.

Liev: It seems like, I don't know. For me, personally, one of the things that draws me to this play is that we've lost a certain ability to deal with nuance and complexity. I think that it does speak to that on some levels, as well as a number of things. I really think it's such a remarkable play. It does so many different things but that piece about speaking to doubt as a unifying concept and that doubt is something that if we could allow ourselves to coexist with, we might be better off but in a world that seems so dead set on winning rather than progress, some of that nuance is lost in the drive to state our position or our place.

The tribalism that seems to have come out of social media, and a number of other things in politics right now.

Host: Extraordinarily relevant. I want to get back to that a little bit later on too. I agree, it's a remarkable piece of scriptwriting, and also the performances were remarkable. Amy, the film adaptation of this play featured some powerhouse performances, Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Phil Davis, late great Philip Seymour Hoffman. I'm wondering what your relationship was like with the film when preparing for this role. Did you watch or rewatch the movie or maybe intentionally stay away to try to bring your own perspective to it?

Amy: I saw the film when it came out and I haven't seen it since.

Liev: She didn't have time.

Host: Right, I know. You got thrown in.

Amy: [inaudible 00:04:37] watch a movie. That would be, oh my God, I don't know. I still don't have the time to sit on the couch and watch a movie but if I had the time, I wouldn't review that. I can only take it as a form of camaraderie. I feel like in some ways, I can convince myself it's a baton being passed down from Cherry Jones to Meryl Streep and how lovely they're handing it to me next.

I might do that for good spirit and good energy and then I throw the rest out because it's not useful. It's not useful of a tool so this process was very, very, very different for me.

Host: Liev referenced that you didn't have time and part of that is that you just came into the role only a few weeks before previews began. Tyne Daly had to drop out for health reasons.

Amy: No, I came in during previews.

Host: Oh, during previews. Excuse me. Wow.

Amy: Yes, you tell me. First of all, Tyne is doing much better.

Host: That's great.

Amy: That's first and foremost, and I want to share that news.

Host: Excellent, thank you.

Amy: I believe you had two shows with Tyne, is that right? Or one?

Liev: None.

Amy: Oh, none.

Liev: No. We had some shows with the understudy and then Amy, thank God, agreed to step in [inaudible 00:05:58].

Host: Amy, how do you crash on a role like this? There is a lot of dialogue. [chuckles]

Amy: The dialogue is so specific and so muscular that I find that if I try to paraphrase it or get a sense of it, it really doesn't work. It's like crashing into a wall. For this, after I got the call Sunday night late and Monday afternoon, I made the decision to go for it. I then got up at 5:30 every morning for the next two weeks to cram while the house was still asleep here before my daughter got off to school and then I would go to the theater and work with the actors when they were available. I'm still cramming. [laughs] I'm still reviewing that script every day.

Host: Even though you're performing every day, you're also looking at the script too to keep it--

Amy: There's still doubt.

[laughter]

Amy: I'm still white-knuckling it, but I'm getting through. I have this remarkable company who from the beginning, gave me such support and patience and just kept nudging me along. I'm just forever grateful to them for that because it's a harrowing process without that love and support.

Host: I can imagine. Yes. Liev, you said thank God Amy stepped in. Once she came on, did you feel like you were stepping into a bit of a new show, or is the character and all remains the same in terms of your performance?

Liev: No, you're absolutely stepping into a new show. Sister Aloysius drives this play and Amy embodied it right away. I was happy though because I felt like Amy embodied all of the contradictions that I think are necessary to really make the play sing. That was all that mattered to me was that we find a way to reinterpret this play 20 years later and I guess for me it's probably-- Amy and I do things very differently.

We've known each other for years, but I totally am a thief. I'll watch everything that happens. I think I'm so influenced by outside influences, sometimes to a fault but for me, I really was concerned about wanting to find a new angle on this play because it has so many layers and it's such a deep play, but find something that speaks to now. As soon as I started working with Amy, I was very, very encouraged by the track she was on.

It was a very gutsy track and it was one that really highlighted the vulnerabilities of both characters that makes that doubt thing come to life in my mind. She takes a very tough line on the character and it allows them to both be vulnerable to their own humanity, which is, I think Shanley is suggesting our doubts.

Host: You learned something new about this story, this parable, and these characters by working with Amy, even though you knew--

Liev: Pretty much every night. It's that kind of play. It really is. It's super fast, which is nice because really, it's intense but pretty much every night, something else pops out to me. I don't know about you, Amy, but almost every night there's a new line or a new thought [unintelligible 00:09:50] about the play.

Amy: I agree. I can't recall being in any other play that the audience was such a vocal part of-- really feel their energy. You really--

Liev: That's the treat. There is the bugs when it's over. Standing ovations are obligatory now, so I don't really talk about those. They almost stop clapping before we're off stage because I think they want to talk.

Host: I can tell you guys, I saw the performance last week, as I said, it was remarkable. I'm leaving and first conversation I overheard was, "Do you think Father Flynn did it?" People were still in the aisles having that conversation and I know my conversations continued into the night. You're getting that sense, just by looking at the audience.

Amy: No, I just hear their-- It feels old-fashioned in a funny way. They're really forgetting themselves and there is this amazing conversation with a bunch of strangers in the dark and they're gasping and they're sighing and they're tsking and they're moaning, they're disgusted. They laugh and I don't know, I find it invigorating. I also find it a little bit-- I put on alert if I'm getting [unintelligible 00:11:23]. It's magic. It's really magical.

Host: Let's get a little bit into the plot a little bit. Amy, tell us about Sister Aloysius and what she sees her role at the school. Is she an archetype of a certain type of person who might exist beyond the confines of a Catholic school in the '60s?

Amy: Yes. She is the principal of the school. She is the gatekeeper. She looks after the children, but not in a warm, fuzzy way. I think she believes strongly in education. She believes in rules, she believes in order and in that could seem very harsh but I think in her world, this is loving. This is what you give children. You give them structure. At a former school, she was at there was a priest that had to be stopped and she wasn't able to succeed there.

I think when she has her suspicions with the new priest, Father Flynn, at the school she's on her track. She's not going to let this happen again on her watch. That starts the journey of her and enlisting young sister James to be her aide.

Host: In these scenes between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn, you see this contrast not only in the fact that Sister Aloysius suspects Father Flynn, but they also have these personality differences, these philosophical differences. There's one early scene between the two where Father Flynn suggests adding a secular song to the annual Christmas pageant, like Frosty the Snowman, or it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Sister Aloysius does not like that idea. I want to play just a bit from that scene right now.

Sister Aloysius: May I ask what you wrote down with that ballpoint pen?

Father Flynn: Oh, nothing. An idea for a sermon.

Sister Aloysius: You had one just now.

Father Flynn: I get them all the time.

Sister Aloysius: How fortunate.

Father Flynn: I forget them so I write them down.

Sister Aloysius: What is the idea?

Father Flynn: Intolerance

Sister Aloysius: Would you like a little more tea Father?

Father Flynn: Not yet. I think a message of the second ecumenical council is that the church needs to take on a more familiar face, reflect the local community. We should sing a song from the radio now and then. Take the kids out for ice cream.

Sister Aloysius: Ice cream.

Father Flynn: Take them on a camping trip. We should be friendlier. The children and the parents should see us as members of their family rather than emissaries from Rome. I think the pageant should be charming, like a community theater doing a show.

Sister Aloysius: But we are not members of their family. We're different.

Father Flynn: Why? Because of our vows.

Sister Aloysius: Precisely.

Father Flynn: I don't think we're so different.

Host: Liev, if you want to tell me about that scene. Part of it made me think that there's something of a subplot there. The existential struggle with an organized religion was definitely a piece of the show, but that's down there. There's a lot else happening, isn't there?

Liev: Sure. I think it's important to remember that John set this play in the Bronx in 1964 and a hotbed of activity in the American Civil Rights Movement, as well as when they talk about the second ecumenical council there, we're talking about Vatican II, which is when the Catholic Church decided to make itself more accessible, more user-friendly, they stopped doing sermons in Latin, they started giving access, and they recommended a different approach to the congregation.

Now, 1964 is right about around the evolution of that Vatican II idea. I think that that's what Father Flynn, I think is a proponent of that. The sermons that he gives that I think that Sister Aloysius questions in a scene with Sister James are these risky, more progressive sermons. I think there's a number of issues going on between these two people. In many ways, sister Aloysius represents the old ideas about the church.

I think that Father Flynn is certainly a proponent of the new, more progressive face of the Catholic church. You can't help but wonder what if Vatican II had gone better and that the perhaps priests could be married or they didn't have to repress their sexuality or that things would've evolved in a different way. For me at least, it's so compelling to think about that. I love that these two characters in this microcosm in the Bronx are debating that.

Host: Another major debate that is underpinning this is race. Race is a big part of the story. Donald Muller is the first and only Black student at the school. Amy, how does race factor into Sister Aloysius' perception of what's going on between Donald and Father Flynn?

Amy: Well, I think there's this wonderful line with the scene with Mrs. Muller where Mrs. Muller, Donald's mother, says that he's had-- I'm paraphrasing it, that it's hard for him here. She doesn't know. For a moment she forgets. She's like, "What? Oh, because he's the only Black child." "Oh, yes, I suppose it is." He has to do the work of course that there is that-- Where Sister Aloysius might be aware of his race and she doesn't want to make a show of him.

In the pageant, she doesn't want to put him forward nor hide him. She wants to take this neutral ground of it, but also she has this convenience that she doesn't have to live with it and what that means. She is a white person who will forget from time to time the struggles that the first Black child will have in this school. Later on, when she suspects Father Flynn having been on tour to Donald Muller I think that's just behind again, her own [unintelligible 00:18:05] fall that she should've seen this coming.

Host: Thanks Amy. Liev, I have one more question before I let you guys go. I happened to watch a speech you made at a Shabbat service for Temple Emanu-EL Streicker back in January. It was about your work in Ukraine. You've co-founded a nonprofit BlueCheck Ukraine to vet fund local Ukrainian organizations. You referenced your Jewish identity in that speech and you said, "Questions and debate are at the heart of Jewish thinking as if truth and its constant need for recalibration are a matter of life and death."

Having watched that and then having just seen the play, this idea of seeking the truth and the constant recalibration of truth, it really seemed to echo the themes in Doubt. Just like you said earlier, the first Broadway production of Doubt reminded audiences perhaps of the war in Iraq. I was wondering if there were any lessons that the audience might, or you hope might take away from Doubt as it relates to real contemporary issues in Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, anything related to our fractious politics?

To me, it was like maybe we constantly need to take new information and new beliefs to update the things we thought were our beliefs. That was where I was. I'm curious if you have any thoughts.

Liev: One of my favorite Jewish quotes is that there is nothing so whole as a broken heart. The idea, or at least how I was raised, which I should remind everyone was Jew-ish is that we have to allow for the complexity of a situation and we have to constantly be, I think, trying to see it from the other person's perspective, and unfortunately, it feels to me like social media with its algorithms that are designed to separate and categorize us for the purposes of marketing is causing a kind of tribalism and a quick rush to judgment about each other that I think is really, really dangerous. It's starting to become scary to me.

The idea that you have to decide whether you're red, you're blue, you're Ukraine, you're Russia, you're Palestine, you're Israel, you're gay, you're straight, you're what, all of it has become so combative. I just love Shanley's message in this play, or at least how it feels to me, which is that doubt can be a unifying concept because when you are lost, you are not alone.

And that if we can start there, and that the idea that our democracy and what Ukrainians are fighting for and losing their lives every day over, is that right to be united and to disagree. To disagree in a united way. It's such a powerful concept. I wish that we could just remember that every once in a while, just get in touch with that unity that we had that we share, which is around doubt and our humanity, which is such a simple human concept.

I think that's what I was referring to in that speech. It's certainly why I suggested to Scott Ellis when he called me about this play.

Host: So powerfully put. Liev Schreiber and Amy Ryan are in Doubt: A Parable, which is running now at the Todd Haynes Theater through April 14th. I've so enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for being on WNYC.

Amy: Thank you.

Liev: Thanks for having us.