Nun of that business! Acting with the Salzburg English Drama Group

"What do you do when you're not sure? That's the topic of our sermon today..." So says Father Flynn in the play "Doubt: A Parable" by Pulitzer award winning playwright John Patrick Shanley.  Our very own Father Flynn is played by an eloquent and masterful Welsh man, Mathew Rushmere, who captures the exact spirit of alienation and exasperation. Did Father Flynn sexually assault a black boy at St Nicholas School? Sister Aloysius certainly thinks so, but the devastated Pastor opens his heart and pleads his innocence, "Please sister, what you are attempting to do, will destroy my reputation... I put my life in your hands!"  "I don't want you!" She slams back vehemently, looking at his hands in utter disgust.

Don't say God's name in vain, but also don't dare mention the Holy Father if you are a pedophile. That's Sister Aloysius' opinion. She is tired, old, angry at the world. Her hips may be giving way, but her mind is etched in stone. Sixty years of living in a life where the "dictates of the soul are numerous!" She hates everything the flirty, dirty, revolutionary 60's has to offer, including Father Flynn and his bloody ball point pens, "penmanship is dying all over the country!" She cries. As bitter as her sugar-less tea, this "Sister of Charity" is cut-throat and lets the audience know it. It is probably a surprise then, that I, as a 22 year old should be assuming the role of a sixty year old tight-lipped Catholic nun. But such is the world of drama!

Sister James, "the witness", is played by 24 year old Eva Nedwed. Her innocent eyes darting around the room, begging for clarity on her faith. How can she be a compassionate teacher when Sister A runs her school to such astute, draconian politics, and keeps her children like "inmates in a prison?!" Sister James is young, naive and uncertain of herself, let alone uncertain of the accusations made against Father Flynn. As Eva Nedwed crumbles with her conscience, Mrs.Muller steps to the stage fumbling with her purse, clasping her heart around the hope that her son is "a good boy, Sister, he fell down there, somewhere down the line, but he's a good boy."

With race relations tense in 1960's America, this play is rooted around the stigmatisation of a black boy in a  "parish which serves Irish and Italian families." A black child caught in a daunting world of racial-discrimination, and an impassioned (or disillusioned) nun battling a structure of hierarchy and patriarchy. But where does that leave Mrs.Muller? In the original play, Mrs.Muller is a black woman in her thirties, but due to the fact that the English Drama Group Salzburg had no black members at the time of casting, the obstacle had to be overcome by casting a white woman, and altering the script to adopt this character into a mixed race relationship, "I'm married to a black man, you gotta problem with that?" We are only too aware of the issues raised by whitewashing, which takes place in so many films, theatre plays and television shows. But Sara Schneider has managed to perfectly encapsulate a Mrs.Muller who is determined to overthrow the powers that be, through integrity and dignity of heart.

Indeed, as Mrs.Muller takes off her sun glasses to reveal a black eye, this may throw a complicated shade on the plot, but in the turbulent social and political landscape of 1960's America, mixed race relations were certainly taboo but certainly not unheard of. So a white Mrs.Muller mothering  a black child, may very well have been treated with the judging eye. The judging, reserved eye of Sister Aloysius, that scans Mrs.Muller, taking in all her vulnerabilities and tragic strengths, as this Mother fights her appeal for acceptance.  

This play, this Drama group has taken me on a journey. Sandra Laing, a wonderful, enigmatic and highly regarded member of the EDGS, was initially chosen for the major role of Sister Aloysius but after sadly bidding farewell to 10 years of gracing the stages of Salzburg, I was cast into this role. On my first encounter with the script, in my mind, I imagined a Sister who was righteous but noble, hard but good-hearted. An old, doddery, kind nun who needed to know that she could correct the ills of society. Our Director Michael Darmanin definitely changed my mind about that! Introducing me to a cold Sister Aloysius, a woman who has many complex strands in her personality and hides an abundance of wounds from her past. A nun who was married once, but found "The Way" and often lost her way through it. Desperate but not weak, certain of her mind but not without her doubts of "Morality" and the complications of it.

The one thing I have no doubt of, the one thing I am not unsure of, is that this was the most beautiful experience I have had during my time living here. Not only has it re-ignited my passion for the stage but also relieved my insecurities in myself. I will never forget the hours upon hours I have spent with this cast, who transformed into characters on the stage and blossomed into the amazing people I have come to know throughout the process. God bless ya!