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Strollers Theatre's "Doubt: A parable" premieres Thursday at Bartell Theatre with Judy Kimball as Sister Aloysius and R. Peter Hunt as Father Flynn. -

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In the past decade, allegations have surfaced one after another, young people now grown accusing Catholic priests of molesting or abusing them. It's a sensitive subject and a potentially sensational one as well, casting clear black-and-white images of good and evil, victim and victimizer.

Strollers Theatre tackles these issues in John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning play, "Doubt: A Parable." Shanley attended Catholic school and dedicated his play to "many orders of Catholic nuns ... Though they have been much maligned and ridiculed, who among us has been so generous?"

"Doubt" premiered in 2004. It opens at the Bartell Theatre Thursday, Sept. 4.

"In this country, to have doubt is seen as weakness," said director Miranda McClenaghan, who directed Yasmina Reza's "Art" for Strollers in 2007. "But if you don't have doubt you're not seeing the whole picture."

McClenaghan is the director of the Theater Education Program at the UW-Madison Division of Continuing Studies and teaches theater at MATC part-time. She's worked with Strollers Theatre for several years.

The national awards were a draw for Strollers and companies like it. "Doubt" was the most-produced play in the country in the 2007-08 season, not counting Shakespeare and "A Christmas Carol," according to Theatre Communications Group.

"Doubt" is set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, when the church was trying hard to connect with its rapidly changing parish. Sister Aloysius, the traditionally minded head of St. Nicholas, suspects Father Flynn of improper behavior with the school's first African-American student. Sister James, an enthusiastic young nun, and the boy's mother round out the cast.

"Shanley has crafted the play not just to show two positions," McClenaghan said. "The four characters in this play each have a very interesting role to play in managing this horrific potential scenario of a young boy being molested by a priest."

The power and frustration of "Doubt" is that the playwright never draws a definite conclusion about what happened. The performance runs 90 minutes in a single act, with the "second act" envisioned as the audience's conversations about what they witnessed.

"I want the audience to leave not knowing who the victim, the villain and the hero are," McClenaghan said. "The audience is going to be horrified in one minute and cheering the next. I have been very careful not to sway the show one way or the other but to truly present each position with equal strength, power and vulnerability."

R. Peter Hunt, seen in last year's potent "Pillowman" at the Bartell Theatre, plays Father Flynn.

"He's this new, up-and-coming guy, the parish loves him, he's a good speaker, he's great with the kids," Hunt said. "In contrast to Sister Aloysius, he represents the newer way of viewing religion, how to make it more accessible but also how to teach students."

Despite that description, it's easy to make Flynn unlikeable, McClenaghan said.

"That's my challenge with the role," Hunt said. "You want to give them enough to make them believe that it could have happened, that the illicit could've happened with the child, but keep them on your side by the end."

Hunt said the questions the play raises about faith, relationships, education and the nature of doubt are the most compelling things about the play.

"Shanley gives us a brilliant play where it could go either way," Hunt said. "It's more powerful and thought-provoking to not have that clear cut definitive answer at the end. That's what the play is about."

IF YOU GO

Strollers Theatre, Ltd. presents "Doubt: A Parable" by John Patrick Shanley, Sept. 4-27 at the Bartell Theatre, 113 E. Mifflin St. 

Show times are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays with an additional matinee at 4 p.m. Saturdays. Tickets cost $15; reservations are recommended. Call 661-9696 ext. 2 to hold tickets.