The nun is certain, or says she is, that the priest is molesting one of the students in her school, but we never are so sure, thanks to John Patrick Shanley’s exquisitely well-crafted play, which debuted on Broadway in 2005, winning both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and four Tony Awards, including Best Play. In this first Broadway revival of “Doubt: A Parable,” which is running only through April 21 at Roundabout’s newly renamed Todd Haimes Theater, the deceptively simple script holds up, the production is sturdy, but only one of the four performances is superb. The others are serviceable, in roles made indelible in the original production (especially Cherry Jones as Sister Aloysius) or in the 2008 movie (Philip Seymour Hoffman as Father Flynn.)

Amy Ryan deserves respect for agreeing to join the cast on a moment’s notice, after Tyne Daly was hospitalized right before the first preview.  Given the circumstances, Ryan does a credible job as Sister Aloysius, the harshly competent principal of a parochial school in the Bronx in 1964. The Sister seems to disapprove of everybody and everything, which offers  moments of levity from her first scene, when she has called to her office the idealistic young teacher Sister James (Zoe Kazan):

“Who’s watching your class?”
“They’re having Art.”
Art,” Sister Aloysius scoffs. “Waste of time.”

She also deplores dance class, long nails, sugar cubes in tea, ballpoint pens. 

 But Sister Aloysius is not a comic figure: Her steeliness, we sense, is hard-earned (we learn she was a war widow before she took her vows); her no-nonsense demeanor is in service to her deep-seated dedication.  Nor is she a simple character: That first scene, full of her criticism of Sister James and clear- if cold-eyed assessments of her students, turns out to have an ulterior purpose – to probe Sister James about Father Flynn, a teacher and coach in the school, and prompt her to pay attention to any signs of untoward behavior. The preparation pays off: Sister James reports Father Flynn paying special attention to the one “Negro” student in the school, Donald Muller.

Director Scott Ellis has said that he had only one actor in mind to portray Father Flynn in his production: Liev Schreiber.

“Doubt” really hinges on the performance of the priest. Schreiber is a fine actor;  he renders riveting the two major monologues by Father Ryan — a Sunday sermon that relates a parable about doubt, and later a coach’s pep talk that features a parable about gossip. But it’s baffling that he would be anybody’s first choice for this role. 

Schreiber is probably best-known for playing such hard-charging characters as the one for which he won a Tony in the David Mamet play “Glengarry Glen Ross,” and the Emmy-nominated title role of the fixer in Ray Donovan. He was also the sober-minded editor of the Boston Globe in “Spotlight” who pushes to investigate the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. 

It might have been possible (if challenging) for him to erase the audience association of him with such roles, but he doesn’t try to; his Father Flynn comes off as serious-minded, almost grim.

This is in sharp contrast to the jovial, people-pleasing priest portrayed by Brían F. O’Byrne in the original Broadway  production and by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the movie. Schreiber’s affect undermines the guessing game that the playwright constructs; it’s harder to suspect somebody of being a predator who seems so amiable, and easier to read “serious” as guilty.

If the central tension of the play is over what’s true, what’s certain, there are other tensions as well – a conflict over world views, represented by both gender and generational differences.

Sister Aloysius despises her relative powerlessness in the male dominated Catholic hierarchy. But she is also old school and, at least in previous productions, from an older generation – at a time when there was a generation gap among Catholics because of the divisive reforms of the  Second Vatican Council.

The actors portraying the priest in the original Broadway production were in their late thirties or early forties; the actresses portraying the principal (Cherry jones and Meryl Streep) were a decade or two older. Liev Schreiber is 56. This is a year older than Amy Ryan.  To be fair, this is not what was initially intended; Tyne Daly is much older. But Father Ryan’s wanting the church to be more populist, to have “a more familiar face,” is a reformist spirit of the era that makes more sense to be embodied by a younger man with a youthful mien.

The one stand-out in the cast is Quincy Tyler Bernstine, who has a single scene  as the mother of the boy, Donald Muller, to whom Father Flynn pays special attention. Her performance highlights two more tensions in this play – different worldviews revolving around race and class.  Bernstine, who has only been on Broadway once before but has been a versatile mainstay Off Broadway for nearly two decades, allows us to understand Mrs. Muller’s indifference to Sister Aloysius’s alarm. She is exasperated by what she sees as the nun’s obsession, but also cowed by her, and intimidated by the surroundings. (This is one of the several ways David Rockwell’s imposing set of Gothic architecture aids the drama.) There is something so revealing, and so touching, about her repeated refrain “Whatever the problem is, Donald just has to make it here till June” — especially when we learn the details of her son’s situation. 

It’s worth pointing out here that, although Donald Muller is etched vividly, we never meet him. There is no actor portraying the child, a degree of craftsmanship, efficiency and sensitivity that serves in admonishing contrast to plays on the same subject like “The Hunt,” (currently at St. Ann’s Warehouse), which do use child actors.

“Doubt: A Parable” is well-enough put together to feel as if it offers insights into much more than just the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church that had entered the spotlight shortly before Shanley wrote this play. But it does answer with bracing clarity a question about that horror that I didn’t see anybody else try to address: Where were the nuns?

Doubt: A Parable
Todd Haimes Theater through April 21
Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $68-$344
Written by John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Scott Ellis
Sets by David Rockwell, costumes by Linda Cho, lighting by Kenneth Posner, sound by Mikaal Sulaiman, hair and wig design Charles G. LaPointe
Cast: Amy Ryan as Sister Aloysius, Live Schreiber as Father Flynn, Quincy Tyler Bernstine as Mrs. Muller, Zoe Kazan as Sister James