Nuns and priests are the new stars on and off-Broadway
Jesus was effeminate, but not Jewish. St. Ignatius smoked Camels, which he stubbed out on the soles of his feet. The collection plate passed after the priest's sermon is like God's Nielsen rating. Priests drink too much wine, and nuns are the Gestapo in wimples. Among those destined to burn in hell are Roman Polanski, Big John Holmes, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. On Broadway and off, these glosses on Catholic dogma are raising smiles, nostalgic shudders and the occasional hackle, as young playwrights sculpt wicked ironies from the gothic fantasies of their parochial school youth. Last week two new "Catholic plays" joined the pair already on the New York boards. No doubt about it: nuns' stories are paving the Great White Way.
This string of rosaries and remembrance began quietly enough. Last fall a gentle comedy-drama by a novice playwright tiptoed onto Broadway, after a run at the Manhattan Theater Club. Bill C. Davis' Mass Appeal lived up to its title, and this study of a wise, troubled priest and a rebellious young deacon is still going strong 160 performances later. Around the same time, Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You exploded off-Broadway. Written with the vindictive passion of a Jacobean tragedy and performed at a tempo the Marx brothers might have found taxing, Durang's one-act delight appeared on a sheaf of Ten Best lists. It has since moved to a larger Manhattan showcase, where it continues to win adherents.
Catholic School Girls, which opened off-Broadway last week, is unlikely to bend anyone's faith—though the sight of Shelley Rogers' dark eyes and impish beauty could trigger instant puberty for any twelve-year-old boy in her class. Rogers is one of four young actresses who alternate roles as students and teachers in a Yonkers, N.Y., parochial school back in the '60s. All the tribal rites reprised here have been done before, and better, and too often—at alumnae gabfests, if not onstage—for Playwright Casey Kurtti to pretend to freshness. Alas, freshness—make that impudence—is all School Girls has going for it. The play's antireligious broadsides are clumsy enough to make the viewer resolve to take a nun to lunch.
Agnes of God, just opened on Broadway, begins with a grisly anecdote: a young nun gives birth in her convent, strangles the infant and stuffs it in a wastebasket. From this tabloid tale, John Pielmeier has fashioned a mystery play about an enduring theological riddle: the virgin birth. Who sired Sister Agnes' child? A visiting priest? A local farm hand? Perhaps God himself? To determine whether Agnes (Amanda Plummer) is fit to stand trial for the murder, the court appoints a psychiatrist, Dr. Martha Livingstone (Elizabeth Ashley), to examine her. Soon enough, Agnes' superior, Mother Miriam Ruth (Geraldine Page), appoints herself as guardian of the girl's interests, and her own.