Adapting Faith Through Doubt is a theatrical adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley. This means that the script is used word for word, but not that the entire play is produced, and some of the imagery/choreography varies from the original production. I used light shadow theatre to show demonic possession and spiritual warfare. The play ran from May 1-3 in the USU Beach Auditorium.
The original play has four characters, and in this adaptation there are 13 characters.
There are three nuns, the mother of the African American student who could possibly have been molested and nine other shadows who act behind a large screen to give a visual interpretation of the story. The shadows also represent demons that
seek to destroy and kill the central characters by physically infecting them: Father Flynn, Sister Aloysius and Sister James. Not only did I add music, fight choreography, audience interaction and light shadow theatre, I also added an angel and demon to
show the spiritual warfare and the fight over human control. At times the angels would speak through one character, they would switch and speak through the other to create uncertainty.
For Pelonis to say that the majority of people who arrived were my family members is false. People who read the front page newspaper article in the Long Beach Press Telegram came to see the production. These are people I do not know, and who
asked to take pictures with me afterward.
Pelonis referred to my article in the Long Beach Press Telegram improperly by talking about me being “a voice for the underdog.” I have experienced racial discrimination from the theatre department, which is why I created the Black Actors Union, and moved my production to the Beach Auditorium, which doesn’t have the standard theatrical lighting and stage equipment.
If the audience left feeling uncertain about whether Father Flynn molested Donald Muller, then I have succeed as a director. This is what the script calls for, there is no certainty, and there is doubt that he may or may have not done it. For the Daily 49er
to say that they left my production not sure of what I was arguing for, that is exactly what they are suppose to feel- uncertainty.
