This year’s Festival Mediterranea came to an end with the American play Doubt – A modern Parable. Written in 2004 by John Patrick Shanley, this intense play, set in a Catholic school in New York, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2005.

For this play, the Astra transformed its vast stage area into a theatre-in-the-round, a trick done twice before in recent years with resounding success.

Although restricting the audience capacity, this transformation creates the intimacy and immediacy that is required for plays in which the spoken word and facial expression are the primary instruments of interest and effect.

The drama unfolds when Sister Aloysius (Maria Schembri), the old-school Mother Superior, reveals her suspicions in one of the teachers, the open-minded Fr Flynn (George Camilleri), who was showing special interest in the only black boy in the school (Joshua Harris Cassar).

She tries to pull another nun, the young and innocent Sister James (Julia Camilleri) into the fray on her side and they take on the priest head-on. Mrs Muller (Paula Harris Cassar), the boy’s mother, has her own views about how to deal with the issue and this does not endear Sister Aloysius.

The small cast, with just four speaking parts, performed their parts with feeling and intelligence, clearly projecting their contrasting characters and lifeviews with skill and conviction.

The play, directed by Mario Tabone, was held on two sold-out nights.

One hopes that this clever technical transformation of the Teatru Astra stage is exploited more frequently.

There are already plans for the staging of the play adaptation of William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies early next year.