THIS
WILL PUT STARCH IN YOUR
WIMPOLE!
A
Review of
Gordon
Productions’ Production of Dan Goggin’s
NUNSENSE
At
the Hoogland Center for the Arts in Springfield, Illinois
by
James L. Seay
Dan
Goggin has made a career out of the Little Sisters of Hoboken. After
the initial success of Nunsense,
there came Nunsence
II: The Second Coming,
Nunsense
III: The Jamboree, Nunsence A-Men!, Nuncrackers: The Nunsense
Christmas Musical, Meshuggah-Nuns: The Ecumenical Nunsense,
Nunsensations: The Nunsense Vegas Review
and Sister
Robert Anne’s Cabaret Class.
Whew! That’s a powerful lot of nuns, even for this old Roman
Catholic boy! Consequently, the adventures of the Sisters Mary
Regina, Mary Hubert, Robert Anne, Mary Amnesia, Mary Leo and Mary
Annette are as well-known to theatre goers as the adventures of
Curley, Laurie, Jud Fry, Ado Annie, etc.
Gordon Productions’
new production of Nunsense
is a toe-tapping, happy, sappy evening at the theatre as might be
expected. The cast of Lori Ann Mitts (Sr. Mary Regina), Mary Jo
Curry (Sr. Mary Hubert), Mary Kate Smith (Sr. Robert Anne), Shelley
Simon (Sr. Mary Amnesia) and Selina Pritchard (Sr. Mary Leo), guided
by the excellent directorial team of Gus Gordon and Don Russell
brought the survivors of the Little Sisters of Hoboken to life in a
tuneful, skillful display of song and dance, with the occasional
comic monologue. The voices were excellent, the choreography was
simple but effective and elegant, the costumes were accurate and
everyone got exactly what they expected. What more could you ask for
at an evening of escapist theatre?
In actuality, Nunsense
is basically a black-out review with the thinnest suggestion of a
plot – a fund-raising event to bury the remaining four victims
of an accidental bocholism poisoning from a tainted pot of cold
French potato soup (made, can you believe it, by Sister Julia, Child
of God). But all this slips aside as the nuns sing, in a
non-plot-furthering fashion, of their prior lives, their secret
dreams, their religious callings coupled with some audience
participation (“The Quiz”), a comic monologue of a
glue-sniffing Mother Superior (“An Unexpected Discovery”)
and a bit of ballet (“Soup’s On – The Dying Nun
Ballet”). The music ranges from virtual Gilbert and Sullivan
patter songs (“Playing Second Fiddle’) to tap (“Tackle
That Temptation With a Time Step”) to C&W (“I Could
Have Gone to Nashville”) to Gospel (“Holier Than Thou”).
It’s cute, it’s often silly, and it is thoroughly
entertaining.
Perhaps because of my personal background, my
personal favorite in the score is Sister Robert Anne’s song,
“Growing Up Catholic.” While I never went to a Catholic
school until college, the song still rang true, and certainly
absolved the play and the playwright of certain charges of
anti-Catholicism that have floated around certain circles since the
play’s opening in 1986. As already stated, the entire play is
just silly fun, and it becomes even more fun, as the sort of singing
shenanigans we see on stage are so incongruent with a bunch of
dancing nuns in traditional habit. In no way, however, is it
irreverent or disrespectful, and the Catholic audience members are
probably the ones who laugh the loudest. There are a certain amount
of Catholic “In-Jokes,” that might be missed by
non-Catholic audience members, but they are fairly few and usually
explained.
The singing and dancing of the cast was ably
backed-up by Matthew Vala on the piano, Robb Stark on bass, Lyle
VanDeVenter on woodwinds and Damien Kaplin on drums. Glenn Jones and
Nicholas Bartolomucci’s sound design worked well and kept the
band from overpowering the singers, which is often the case,
unfortunately, in HCFTA productions in the L.R.S. Theatre.
A
smaller-than-expected audience seemed to really get into the
production, although there were the occasional exceptions. One
glower fellow, who obviously would have been happier at home watching
football, passed me at intermission and grumbled, “Is it half
time?” Fortunately, his ilk was in the minority. And while
Nunsense
and all its progeny, in spite of my religious background, is not my
real cupa tea in the musical theatre genre, I, too, thoroughly
enjoyed myself and recommend Gordon Productions current offering of
Nunsense
to everyone – even those who would rather be watching
football.
Nunsense
continues to play at the Hoogland Center for the Arts, 420 South
Sixth Street, Springfield, Illinois through September 20th
with an 8:00 p.m. curtain. For ticket information, call (217)
523-2787 or visit them on line at www.scfta.org.
|
