(Host) The Weston Playhouse Theatre Company is kicking off its 2008 season with the Pulitzer Prize winning drama ‘Doubt' by John Patrick Schanley.

The play deals with a hot button topic - child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. But it's really a parable whose message goes beyond that.

VPR's Susan Keese went Backstage for a preview.

(Keese) Doubt was first produced on Broadway in 2004, but the story happens in a Catholic school in the early 1960s. It's a time when assumptions about everything are about to change, and each of the characters reflects the simmering uncertainty of those times.

John Leonard Thompson plays Father Flynn, a charismatic priest with new ideas about ``connecting'' with young parishioners. Kate Geohering is sister Aloysius, the school principal. She's still clinging to the old order.

Here's a scene in which she's called Father Flynn and a young nun in, ostensibly to talk about the school Christmas pageant. Father Flynn suggests adding a few secular Christmas tunes. The younger nun burbles that she loves ``Frosty the Snowman.''

Sister Aloysius:

(Sister Aloysius) ```Frosty the Snowman' espouses a pagan belief in magic. The snowman comes to life when an enchanted hat is put on his head. If the music were more..... the people would realize that the images are disturbing, the song heretical.''

(Sister James) ``I never thought about Frosty like that.''

(Sister Aloysius) ``It should be banned from the airwaves.''

(Flynn) ``So, not `Frosty the Snowman.'''

(Keese) The mood gets tense as it becomes clear that the Christmas pageant was a pretext. What Sister Aloysius really wants to talk about is her suspicion that Father Flynn has molested an altar boy, who happens to be the school's first black student.

(Flynn)``What exactly are you accusing me of?''

(Sister Aloysius) ``I'm not accusing you of anything, Father Flynn. I'm asking you to tell me what happened in the rectory.''

(Flynn) ``I don't wish to continue this conversation at all further. I can only imagine that your unfortunate behavior this morning is the result of overwork. Perhaps you need a leave of absence. I may suggest it.''

(Keese) Weston's Malcom Ewan, who directs the play, says ``Doubt's'' incendiary topic is just a vehicle. 

(Ewan) ``I think the play is not so much about that as it's about how we know what we know. It's about doubt.''

(Keese) In a sermon in the play, Father Flynn tells his congregation that doubt is okay. John Leonard Thompson:

(Thompson) ``He says that doubt is the door through which conversion comes. That it's where creative thought happens. And for a lot of people in the Catholic tradition, that can be an innovative point of view. Father Flynn embraces ambiguity in a way that makes some people uncomfortable.''

(Keese) Sister Aloysius, for her part, has no proof of the inappropriate behavior she suspects.

(Goehring) ``So the consequences of not acting on it are dire. But the consequences of moving forward without having sufficient information can really do profound damage. Especially if the actions don't result in anything that really changes anything.''

(Keese) Before the end, the entire parish is polarized over what happens. Sister James, the younger nun, loses her optimism after revealing something she happens to have seen.

Lauren Orkus plays that role.

(Orkus) ``This play takes a heavy toll on her. She doubts her place in the church, she doubts the way in which you're supposed to follow your superior... because the hierarchy of the church demands that you do. And the biggest thing for Sister James, I think, is that her love of teaching has been broken throughout the course of this event.''

(Keese) Ewen, the director, says the play also leaves the audience in doubt. Its author wrote in his preface about a ``hardening of opinion'' in the public conversation today - a ‘with us or against us' mentality, that treats doubt as a kind of weakness.

( Ewan) ``Shanley also says - it's a one-act play - the second act of the play happens in the car ride home.''

(Keese) That's when members of the audience take up the debate over who was right, who was wrong and what really happened. Ewan says "Doubt'" will give its audiences lots to talk about, but no conclusive proof. And that, he says, is what the play is really about.

For VPR News, I'm Susan Keese, in Weston.

(Host) The Weston Playhouse production of "Doubt'' continues Tuesday through Saturday, July 5. For more information, see the VPR website.

http://www.westonplayhouse.org/mainstage1.html