JULY 13, 2017 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
‘Doubt’ provokes moral outrage, inspires discussion
tainty. Why are we inclined
to believe one party over
another when the evidence
doesn’t privilege
either one? What
prejudices color
our perception of
events for which we
weren’t present ?
Our instinct is to
respond to the plot
twists with moral
outrage that we often don’t
know where to direct .
At fi rst, we feel confi dent
that Sister Aloysius, who
accuses Father Flynn of
By ERICK BENGEL
FOR COAST WEEKEND
J
ohn Patrick Shanley’s
“Doubt, A Parable,” a
play showing in Ne-
halem and the subject
of this issue’s cover story
(see Page 8), is a unsettling
piece of theater, and not
simply because it involves
whether a priest molested a
boy at a Catholic school.
It is unsettling because
it compels the audience
to track their own moral
judgments and sense of cer-
coast
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
weekend
child abuse, is probably in-
correct, and may be seizing
on an opportunity to rid the
school of a bother-
some priest whose
progressive atti-
tudes, she believes,
threaten the institu-
tion. Then we’re not
so sure.
We believe the
head nun is fi rm in
her convictions and almost
possessed by a pathological
certitude — about every-
thing from her allegations
against Father Flynn to her
COAST WEEKEND EDITOR
ERICK BENGEL
CALENDAR COORDINATOR
REBECCA HERREN
arts & entertainment
ADVERTISING MANAGER
BETTY SMITH
ON THE COVER
CONTRIBUTORS
MARILYN GILBAUGH
RYAN HUME
BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
Actors rehearse a scene
from the play ‘Doubt’
at the Performing Arts
Center in Nehalem.
PHOTO BY COLIN MURPHEY
See story on Page 8
COASTAL LIFE
4
Music in the Gardens 2017
8
‘Doubt, A Parable’
12
Tour explores seven private gardens
FEATURE
Award-winning drama comes to Nehalem
DINING
Mouth of the Columbia
Highlighting Mudd Dogs’ hot dogs
FURTHER ENJOYMENT
MUSIC CALENDAR .....................5
CROSSWORD ..............................6
SEE + DO ........................... 10, 11
CW MARKETPLACE ......... 15, 16
GRAB BAG ................................ 19
Find it all online!
CoastWeekend.com
features full calendar listings,
keyword search and easy
sharing on social media.
To advertise in Coast Weekend,
call 503-325-3211 or contact
your local sales representative.
© 2017 COAST WEEKEND
New items for publication
consideration must be
submitted by 10 a.m.
Tuesday, one week and two
days before publication.
TO SUBMIT AN ITEM
Phone: 503.325.3211 Ext. 217
or 800.781.3211
Fax: 503.325.6573
E-mail: editor@coastweekend.com
Address: P.O.Box 210 •
949 Exchange St. Astoria,
OR 97103
Coast Weekend is published every
Thursday by the EO Media Group,
all rights reserved. No part of this
publication can be reproduced
without consent of the publisher.
Coast Weekend appears weekly
in The Daily Astorian and the
Chinook Observer.
faith in God — until we
don’t.
We think we know how
the alleged victim’s mother
will react to the news that
her son, Donald Muller,
may have been “interfered
with” — until she reveals
that the boy’s life has been
one long crisis, and forces
us to ask: Is it really worse
to have a caring priest show
an interest in him, even
if it is sexual, than to be
regularly beaten by a father
who despises him (possibly
for being gay), or relocated
to a different school where
white students may kill him
because he is black?
And we think the priest
is innocent, and that we’ve
been judging the situation
fairly, distinguishing the
just from the unjust, until
we don’t know what to
think.
The play contains so
much weighty matter — tra-
ditional vs. modern values,
segregation vs. integration,
homosexuality vs. pedo-
philia, doubt vs. certain-
ty — that it’s tempting to
wonder if the playwright
kept a checklist of hot-but-
ton issues on hand while he
composed it.
The reason it works as
absorbing drama is that the
issues are kept in close-up,
played out as the person-
al story of adults whose
decisions will determine
the survival of Donald
Muller — a child who is
always offstage, but whose
presence is felt in every
scene, haunting characters
who claim to have his best
interests at heart. CW