Nun play scorches — even in a so-so revival

It’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed since Doubt, director John Patrick Shanley’s searing drama about a nun who suspects her vicar is a child molester, premiered off-Broadway.

It’s not because time has passed. That wasn’t the case, as evidenced by how vastly different the two decades and several earth-shaking social movements that followed were in some scenes.

That disbelief stems from the realization that, just two decades later, Doubt is back on Broadway as a bona fide classic. It packs as much weight and confidence as American players four times its age, not to mention a league better than most new talent.

Shanley has written a perfect work that stands up to so-so works like the revival starring Amy Ryan and Liev Schreiber that opened Thursday at the Todd Haymes Theater.

The screenplay is the star. And while the head-to-head confrontation between Sister Aloysius (Ryan) and Father Flynn (Schreiber) doesn’t explode as powerfully as they could here, the words never quite nail it.

Brooklyn elementary school principal Sister Aloysius, as determined as ever, dies convinced that the popular new priest is having an inappropriate relationship with a young black priest named Donald Muller.

So she recruits the cheerful, positive young Sister James (who is her complete opposite) to help her coerce a confession from the pastor.

Audiences’ perceptions of the heroically resolute Aloysius seem to have changed over the past two decades.

“Doubt” debuted shortly after a Boston Globe investigation revealed widespread child abuse within the Catholic Church, and ticket buyers at the time believed she had no concrete evidence. Even though she relied on her intuition, she tended to support her stubborn sister.

When distanced from these scary headlines, viewers seem unsure of which camp they’re on.

When Ryan’s Aloysius clashes with Flynn in his office, I’ve never felt the theater so sympathetic to an accused priest. I also saw some finger snapping to support his self-defense.

That reaction may be because Schreiber exudes a warm fatherly energy that never feels sinister or creepy. He acts rationally and rightly asserts his innocence. You can’t say the same about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance in the 2008 film with Meryl Streep.

Alternatively, the sand movement may be due to Ryan’s views. Aloysius himself is not at all a likable person. she is admirable. She is a rebellious Old World Catholic who resists the modern changes the church was making in the mid-1960s.

But Ryan plays her as “Dangerous Will Robinson”! Robotism further cools the icicles. After all, this is the woman who casually throws out lines like “Innocence is a form of laziness.” Ryan is more nasty than ferocious, more like another day in the parsonage than superhuman.

Both are valid options. Both performances are powerful. It is interesting to see how this play, which never tells the whole truth, becomes more and more ambiguous. However, the pair of actors do not mesh at all.

Quincy Tyler Bernstein gives a moving performance as Mrs. Mueller, whose speech about her son’s future still resonates with her. And Kazan is truly wide-eyed and optimistic about James. Unlike Aloysius, who lost her husband in World War II, she has not yet experienced the cruelty of the world.

But director Scott Ellis’s work has a troubling tendency to put the brakes on. Every time the drama is about to really unfold, it stops or slows down. Shanley’s thunderous climax rains down like rain.

Still, you could do worse than simply watch one of the best plays of the 2000s properly.