Talk Bronx New York

The air is thick with paranoia in “Doubt,” but nowhere as thick, juicy, sustained or sustaining as Meryl Streep’s performance as a distrustful nun in John Patrick Shanley’s screen adaptation of his stage play. Wearing flowing black robes, a bonnet that squats on her head like an upside-down Easter basket and the kind of spectacles Mr. Pickwick probably wore to read his papers, Ms. Streep blows in like a storm, shaking up the story’s reverential solemnity with gusts of energy and comedy. The performance may make no sense in the context of the rest of the film, but it is — forgive me, Father — gratifying nunsense.

Although the play, which pivots on accusations of child molestation, was first staged in 2004 — two years after the Roman Catholic Church sex-abuse scandals erupted in America — it unfolds at a historical remove in 1964. Sister Aloysius (Ms. Streep), the principal of a Catholic school in the Bronx, comes to suspect that her supervisor, Father Flynn (a tamped-down Philip Seymour Hoffman), has developed an erotic interest or worse in one of their charges, Donald (Joseph Foster II), the school’s first and only black student. Shored up by the tentative suspicions of a younger nun, Sister James (an unsteady Amy Adams), Sister Aloysius begins circling Father Flynn, going in for the kill. Sister James has doubts. Sister Aloysius has, well, none. Read more..

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WHEN John Patrick Shanley steps into a Midtown Manhattan hangout known for its theater clientele, few would guess how much he belonged.

There is little about his sure gait, workingman hands or no-nonsense affect that flicks at the artist within, let alone a playwright, often the more delicately wrought of the species. Only the eyes, weakened by glaucoma but working, suggest anything other than a tough guy from the Bronx. And in that gaze he is constantly calibrating everything around him, seeing a great deal and concluding not much.

“It’s an important part of my personality that I continually adjudicate, but I never reach a verdict,” he explains.

If Mr. Shanley, 58, more resembles a craftsman — the wizened, handsome contractor — it only makes sense. He builds stuff, including “Doubt,” a cultural artifact so sturdy that it not only became a Broadway achiever, winning a Tony for best play, but a film staring Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman that is among the mentioned in this year’s Oscar race. By the way, he already has one of those for writing the 1987 film “Moonstruck.” He’s been building and telling stories for a while. Read more..

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