i’ve been interested in this play ever since playwright john patrick shanley’s interview on npr. i followed the play’s fortunes off broadway and read the reviews. cherry jones won widespread accolades. all in all, the play didn’t do too badly - it won the 2004 pulitzer prize, the tony award and every critics’ award. unfortunately, i still hadn’t seen it.

imagine my joy when i found out that “doubt” was coming to geva theatre. my husband had his own doubts - the last (and only) time he had been to geva was to see a vapid “camelot”. we had just moved to rochester from the nyc area and were sorely underwhelmed by the lackluster staging of this larger-than-life arthurian legend. long story short, my husband had vowed never to return to geva.

however, i could figure that this 3-character play was going to be a completely different affair - not a big stage production, but rather a study in character acting. i bought 2 tickets and we went to see the play last weekend. it was terrific.

it’s the writing that hits you first. it has a sharpness and sparkle that’s very new york. it’s witty and profound all at once. i found the subject matter very thought-provoking - not just its reality-based depiction of scandal in the inner sanctum of a closed, rigidly hierarchical system such as the catholic church, but on a broader level, the yin and yang between doubt and certitude and the values society or religion ascribes to each. when does certitude become fanaticism? when does doubt become moral ambiguity? these are important questions to ask in today’s world.

sean patrick reilly gives a nuanced performance, undulating dangerously between the roles of charismatic, hands-on, accessible priest before his congregation; self-important, bullying man when locked in a power struggle; and perhaps morally tepid, unrepentant child molestor in private life?

but it’s judith delgado who steals the show. she is a powerhouse of wit and obstinate determination. we hate and admire her. there are no cracks in her shield of arrogant conviction until the very end of the play, when we are reminded of the dangers of absolute certainty, untempered by doubt.

here is a great interview with writer mohsin hamid about his new book, “the reluctant fundamentalist”. hamid was born in pakistan, educated in america and now lives in london. two things that jumped out at me when i heard him on npr’s fresh air:

1) his book is based on a monologue between a princeton-educated pakistani man and a mysterious american who runs into him at a cafe in lahore. the reason he decided to write the novel in his pakistani protagonist’s voice is on account of the staggering silence imposed on muslims by western media. he was playing with the idea of looking at the world not through dialogue with others, but based on a one-sided conversation.

2) hamid talks about how he is not viewed with as much suspicion in england as he is in america. he attributes this fear to american media which have made it their mission to alarm people by telling them that they will die in a terrorist attack. he then puts it in perspective. 3,000 people died on september 11. 42,000 americans die each year in car crashes. yet we do not fear getting into a car. i would like to add this. we have accepted domestic spying, extraordinary renditions, torture, guantanamo, unprovoked wars, blackwater, halliburton, injustice, corruption and the defilement of our name around the world for the sake of feeling safer and less likely to die in a terrorist attack. if saving american lives is what we are talking about (and not oil-money) it would be much more effective, cheaper and straightforward to enforce a national speed limit of 5 miles per hour!

my friend sarita recently made a connection between the aftermath of 9/11 and women’s rights. i had never thought about that. i had never looked at the fallout from 9/11 and parsed it in terms of gender. being a muslim of pakistani descent, the religious and ethnic aspects of it are obvious and obdurately in my face. but what about the effects of this macho, capitalism-preserving, war-loving, world-domination driven culture on women - not the long-suffering, burqa-clad women of afghanistan, but the quietly marginalized women of america? i was still chewing on this new paradigm, when i stumbled upon a susan faludi interview on democracy now!, in which she talks about her new book, “the terror dream”. i found it fascinating. here it is:

mara verheyden-hilliard is a civil rights attorney and co-founder of the partnership for civil justice. she is also on the steering committee of the international group ANSWER (act now to stop the war and end racism), the main organizers of the september 15, 2007 anti-war mass protest in washington dc. this woman is amazing. not only is she extraordinarily intelligent and articulate but her weltanschauung has a moral rectitude rarely found today. after all, i believe that we are living at a time when information-fixing and therefore thought-control have reached a new pinnacle. it is already a struggle to see past the smoke and mirrors but then to be able to stand up for what you believe in, even if that is considered “fringe” and unpopular, and to work tirelessly to change things for the better - that to me is the mark of an outstanding human being.

here’s an interview mara did back in 2003 for npr’s fresh air. she talks about her involvement in anti-war demonstrations on the eve of the american invasion of iraq. this interview is a big slap in the face of the theory that npr is somehow liberal. terry gross is as establishment as anyone else, she certainly has her own agenda, which she pushes aggressively to the detriment of her job as host and interviewer.

this is an article mara wrote for globalresearch.ca, june 3, 2006 - it’s called “the logic of war crimes in a criminal war“.

one of the points mara makes is not to get distracted by elections - if you look at the history of our country, no worthwhile, groundbreaking change was ever effected through the election of the right politicians. what we need instead are grassroots movements that mobilize people to come out in unison and decry the war as well as other racist government policies. this is the only way to force politicians, whether they be republican or democrat, to take account of what we think and what we want, we the people they are supposed to serve!