Broadway play Doubt starring Cherie Gil
Tuesday, May 30th, 2006
Doubt, the most acclaimed play on Broadway today, will be staged
in Cebu at Onstage! Ayala Cinema 1 from June 30 to July 1. Winner of the 2005
Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama and the 2005 Tony Award for Best Play, John
Patrick Shanley’s Doubt has been hailed as the most compelling and
magnificently crafted piece of drama to hit the Broadway stage in years. It is
still currently running at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway and this year
alone it is set to run in over 25 countries around the world including Taiwan,
Japan, Chile, New Zealand, most of Europe and America - emphasizing the
remarkable global appeal of the play.
The Wall Street Journal states that Doubt is “the best new play of the season.
That rarity of rarities, an issue-driven play that is unpreachy,
thought-provoking, and so full of high drama that the audience with which I saw
it gasped out loud a half-dozen times at its startling twists and turns.”
Set in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt tells the story of a Roman Catholic school
principal Sister Aloysius (Cherie Gil) - a woman with a reputation for tenacity
and flinty resolve who inhabits a world of black-and-white, truth and lies.
When she begins to have doubts about the nature of a relationship between
parish priest Father Flynn (Niccolo Manahan) and a young black student she sets
out, with steely determination, to trap him.
Despite the protestations of the boy’s mother, the disbelief of a novice, the
weight of the Church authorities and the denials of the priest himself, she
will not be swayed from her convictions. Is she driven by the strength of her
faith or unjustly persecuting him?
While writing Doubt, playwright John Patrick Shanley (recipient of the 1998
Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the movie Moonstruck) drew inspiration from
his own childhood experiences.
“I went to a church in the Bronx in 1964. It was such a specific world that has
now vanished, a world involving the Sisters of Charity, who dressed in black
robes and black bonnets. More recently, the world around me started to remind
me in certain key ways of this time - of people of conviction and people who
weren’t certain, at odds with each other and their power struggle.”
In her return to the stage after 20 years, movie and television star Cherie Gil
plays the pivotal role of Sister Aloysius. Father Flynn will be played by
Niccolo Manahan, with Jay Glorioso and Cathy Azanza rounding up the cast.
venue: Onstage! Ayala Cinema 1, Ayala Center - Cebu
ticket prices: Ticket prices are 300, 400, and 600 pesos, with student
discounts available. For inquiries, please contact Little Boy Productions at
0917-815 5794 or the Arts Council of Cebu at 233-0236. Tickets are available
at East,West Café in Ayala, and at Citickets.
date time: June 30, July 1 and 2, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 PM, with
Saturday and Sunday matinees at 3:00 PM
