Walter Kerr Theater - 219 W 48th st.

Probably the best new play this year. Very well in tune with the zeitgeist, and depending on ones position in todays utterly divisive political landscape, the play is about pedophile priests or about self righteous religious conservatives who believe that their instincts is Gods own truth and entitles them to anything, unconditionally.

Sister Aloysius, the principal of a Catholic school, is a frightening portrait of a person whose unwavering inability to question her own assumptions launches her on a quest to bring down Father Flynn, the priest assigned to her school, whom she believes (or should we say "knows"...?) to be a child molester. Who needs proof or reason, if you have convictions and moral certainty? "In order to fight evil, one has to step away from god.." (paraphrase) - where does that stop? Character assassination, preemptive warfare, torture, burning at the stake?

With more of her kind in positions of influence, enlightenment and rationality may just turn out to be a very passing fad of a few centuries in between extended periods of religious fundamentalism.