The doubt you take home after seeing John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt, a Parable” is your own. We’re talking about the 90-minute 2005 play here, not the purportedly bloated film currently playing at a multiplex near you. San Diego Repertory Theatre presents the original fourhanded stage work through Feb. 8 only, and it should be on everyone’s must-see list, not just because San Diego actors Monique Gaffney, Amanda Sitton and Rosina Reynolds rock but also because Todd Salovey once again proves himself a superb director. This gnarly little stage work exercises all one’s intellectual and moral synapses to the max. The joy of it is that one does not feel manipulated as with so many other playwrights. In the first scenes, we are thoroughly put off by the prissy and possibly vindictive Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Reynolds) who has no apparent motive for acting as she does. Sitton is lovely, quite “Sound of Music” innocent as Sister James, a new and inexperienced teacher at the Catholic school where Aloysius is the superintendent. Sister James is suggestible and even doubtful of Aloysius’ suspicion about Father Flynn (Douglas Roberts), namely that he is molesting a 12-year-old boy in his class. Gaffney presents a multi-faceted portrayal of the boy’s perhaps realistic mother, who thinks that once her troubled son gets through grade school things will be better for him. Never mind his abusive father. Initially it appears that the slightly nervous, vastly expansive and seemingly well-intentioned Father Flynn (Roberts) must be innocent, that he is merely providing the fatherly concern and care the boy needs, especially after the lad is caught having drunk the communion wine. This is much darker territory than “Boy’s Town” or “The Bells of St. Mary’s.” Once he’s had his way with the audience, lurching us forth and back between innocence and guilt, Shanley delivers a masterful whammy, and we go home with further doubt and “Doubt” tucked into our handbags and psyches. No wonder it received the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. By the way, composer Michael Roth, frequently associated with La Jolla Playhouse, provides a masterful score, continuing chaotic emotions between scenes and delivering a benediction with which Christians may identify. “Doubt, a Parable” continues through Feb. 8 at San Diego Repertory Theatre Space, 79 Horton Plaza (parking validated inside the lobby), downtown San Diego. For tickets ($25-$53), go to www.sdrep.org or call (619) 544-1000.