By DICKSON MERCER

Staff writer

Is there a play more accurately titled than "Doubt: a Parable"? I seriously doubt it.

John Patrick Shanley's award-winning 2004 drama, onstage at Three Notch Theatre in Lexington Park for one more weekend, presents a crescendo of the feeling. Shanley's tight script is, in fact, built on it, providing us compelling clues all while holding doubt's antonym just barely out of reach.

The play is set in the Bronx in 1964, in the Catholic St. Nicholas Church School. And from one scene to the next, the doubt level plus its various symptoms — like confusion and disorientation — spikes higher … and higher.