Theatre in Review: Sister Act (Broadway Theatre)

	Photo: Joan Marcus

Mormons have all the luck; these rude guys from South Park set out to lampoon them in a musical, and they end up with a show affirming the need for religious faith. Catholics, on the other hand, get Sister Act, which ostensibly pays tribute to nuns but, in reality, practically patronizes them to death. What with The Divine Sister, The House of Blue Leaves, and Kathleen Turner's over-the-top emoting in High, this has been a tough year for nuns in the theatre. Really, I think it's time we let them have a rest.

What's particularly frustrating about Sister Act is that it has good bones. As adapted from the popular film by Bill and Cheri Steinkeller, with an assist from Douglas Carter Beane, it hits all the right marks in telling the story of Deloris, a would-be diva who, having accidentally witnessed her gangster boyfriend commit murder hides out in an inner-city Philadelphia convent. Disguised as one of the sisters, she turns the convent's lackluster choir into a gospel music sensation, thereby saving their nearly bankrupt parish.

It's a clever idea, and if anyone involved trusted it, it might have made for a fine evening of farcical fun. But they're all too busy pushing for the next laugh, whether makes any sense or not. The whole point of the story is that the sisters are a bunch of drabs who need Deloris to sass them up, but, in reality, they're so busy cracking wise that they sound less like Brides of Christ and more like the inhabitants of a writer's room in Burbank. Many of these are assigned to Audrie Neenan as the convent's in-house cutup; pointing out a superannuated colleague, she confides, "Rumor has it that when they found the Shroud of Turin, they brought her in to verify the likeness." Another time, she snaps, "I'm a nun. My life is like the Stations of the Cross - without the laughs." Then again, everyone in the show talks like this; a cop who befriends Deloris recalls the time in high school when she staged an all-black production of Funny Girl -- called Girl.

The score, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Glenn Slater, is similarly uneven. As long as it sticks upbeat disco anthems and smoothly seductive Sound-of-Philadelphia ballads, it'll keep you rocking in your seat. (The time frame has been rolled back to 1977.) But there are too many cornball comedy numbers like "It's Good to Be a Nun," "Bless Our Show" (featuring the sisters in an impromptu pajama party), and treacly ballads like the title tune. Worst of all is "The Life I Never Led," an overbearing aria for a postulant having second thoughts about her vocation, which is tossed into the second act clearly because somebody there needed a "serious" moment.

And so it goes. A really fine number, "Raise Your Voice," shows how Deloris inspires the choir to get some soul; it's an extended sequence that radiates humor and energy -- and, best of all, gets you believing that such a transformation could happen. However, all the accumulated good will is thrown out the window in the next scene, when the choir appears in church, practically bumping and grinding their way through one of Deloris' old nightclub songs. One nun struts about, twirling the knotted cord around her waist like she's dressy Tessy Tura, tutoring young Gypsy Rose Lee on how to get a gimmick. (Later on, Neenan shows up in a glitter habit with giant black shades and launches into a rap number. If you don't think that's just the cutest thing, the Broadway Theatre is no place for you these days.) Also in the no-cliché-left-unturned department, after a couple of concerts, the nuns all start spouting Yiddish -- because that's what people in show business do, don't they?

One area where Sister Act doesn't stint is its on-stage talent. Ever since her glorious rendition of "The Age of Aquarius" in the Central Park edition of Hair a couple of years back, I've been waiting to see Patina Miller again -- and, without question, she's the real thing, a brass-voiced, bigger-than-life comedienne who is more than capable of carrying a show. It's a little surprising to see the elegant Victoria Clark under these circumstances, as a disapproving Mother Superior, but she hangs on to her dignity throughout, even if it's by her fingernails. Even saddled with a tacky, half-hearted number like "I Haven't Got a Prayer," she manages to plausibly suggest her character's spiritual crisis.

As the local pastor, Fred Applegate gives in the material too easily, adopting a Barry White attitude for his sermons, but he pulls off a neat bit of farce in Act II when three people invade a confessional built for two. Sarah Bolt is a charmer as the disarmingly sunny sister who is the first to get into Deloris' groove. Demond Green gets a laugh with almost every line as the dimmest of the gangsters on Deloris' trail. Chester Gregory wins us over as the cop who carries a long-burning torch for Deloris; his big number, "I Could Be That Guy," features the most astonishing a vista costume change I've ever seen. Kingsley Leggs makes for a smooth-talking murderer. Neenan makes the most of her gag lines, whether they are appropriate or not. The director, Jerry Zaks, has reportedly done much to clarify the show's narrative, but he has done practically nothing to impose any consistency on the writing.

Klara Zieglerova's scenery includes a cleverly rendered postage stamp nightclub, a police station, a low-down bar, an attractive apartment interior, some back alleys and streetscapes, and several locations in the convent, created by a constantly shifting set of Gothic arches. Her big piece is the church interior, rendered by a force-perspective portal made up of stained glass windows and organ pipes, plus plenty of scaffolding so we know the place is falling apart. But why did she have to turn the enormous statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary into a glitter ball for the finale? Lez Brotherston's nuns' habits become increasing bejeweled as the numbers go by, making you wonder what ever happened to vows of poverty. (This is the kind of show where any breach of taste or flouting of reality is justified by the fact that Sister Act is a musical.) Natasha Katz's lighting is smartly restrained in the early scenes, saving up firepower for the big numbers. John Shiver's sound design is a little hard and brassy for my taste, although it isn't inappropriate, given the score.

The fact that the audience goes wild over Sister Act suggests to me that nuns, a dying breed in the Catholic Church, no longer have any reality for most people. In the course of my life, some of the smartest, toughest, most independent-minded women I've ever met were nuns. They were nothing like that sisters of Sister Act, who are more like adorable, especially clever, house pets. These women have dedicated their souls to God -- too bad, they're in a show created by people who would sell their souls for a laugh.--David Barbour