When Sister Mary Ignatius made her first St. Louis appearance some 30 years ago, all Hell, or maybe Heaven, broke out. The always open and progressive Missouri Legislature considered bills to ban it, or anything like it, from the state's stages. The usually liberal and academic-freedom loving Washington University reneged on an agreement and refused to allow a production at the Edison Theatre. The St. Louis Board of Aldermen retreated behind the tizzy it goes into at the first sign of anything controversial without a check attached.
But space was found, and the late, lamented Theatre Project Company, led by Fontaine Syer and Bobby Miller, mounted the production. The sun rose the next day. No one's life was ruined, and no proof ever was offered that a single ticket buyer ended up in Heaven or Hell because of attending or decling to attend.
The play has returned. "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You" opened a three-weekend run on Friday in Tower Grove Abbey -- once a church -- and St. Louisans barely noticed. The Stray Dog Theatre production was certainly satisfactory, though the play itself remains a poor example of Christopher Durang's writing talent. More important, the earth of South St. Louis did not open up and swallow a cast and audience of obvious sinners. And some people actually laughed when Catholic doctrine and dogma were the subject of satire and mockery, if not downright ridicule.
Durang, author of "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" and many other plays, has admitted he wrote about Sister Mary as a response to some of his own Catholic school experiences, and high school resonated in some of the writing. It's a lot harsher than "Late Night Catechism," for example, but at least Sister Mary didn't castigate a critic (not I, thank you) for chewing gum while walking down the aisle and point out to another (guilty, your honor) that his middle name clearly indicated that he was not a Catholic.
Margeau Baue Steinau did nice work as Sister; she showed excellent timing, the proper anger and talk show hostess-level animosity, single-mindedness and casual acceptance of truth. It's a good performance.
The former students who invade the classroom in the later going, first to put on a funny Nativity "pageant," involving Joseph, Mary and a camel, then to finally complete a plan to embarrass a teacher they've hated for several decades, have been created as two-dimensional characters, each providing Guare with an opportunity to vent his spleen, and vent it he does.
Jenn Bock is Diane, who has had two abortions; Stephen Peirick is Gary, who is gay; Colleen M. Backer is Phillomena, a single mother and B. Weller is Aloysius, who has been suffering from bladder problems ever since Sister refused to excuse him from class. Young Adam Steinau was a young pupil well-trained in his responses to catechism, a touch too fast in his delivery from time to time, but as obedient and well-mannered as if he were responding not just to a nun, but to a superior mother which, in truth, he was.
The play has weakness, but it has laughs, and an audience of obvious heathens, obviously destined to spent eternity in a dark and fiery place, enjoyed the production, nicely directed by Gary F. Bell.
A Stray Dog Theatre production at Tower Grove Abbey, through Dec. 19
-Joe
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