THE ACTORS GROUP
Walter Eccles, second from right, lives an actor's worst nightmare as he's trapped on stage with Eden-Lee Murray, left, John Wythe White and Stephanie Kuroda, without a clue as to the role he's supposed to be playing.
Play turns religion Devout Catholics, and anyone who considers an attack on Catholic doctrines offensive when presented as entertainment, can stop reading now and simply make a note to skip The Actors Group's double-header, "The Actor's Nightmare" and "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You." The second -- and funnier -- of these one-act plays by Christopher Durang is almost certain to offend you.
into cutting humor
"The Actor's Nightmare" and "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You": Presented by The Actors Group; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays through Dec. 8; at Yellow Brick Studio, 625 Keawe St. Tickets $10. Call 591-7999.Review by John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comEverybody else, read on. Both plays have weak moments, but their strengths outweigh those weaknesses.
Jo Pruden gives a superb performance in the title role as a no-nonsense nun who takes no prisoners in "Sister Mary." The action starts exactly as the title suggests, with Sister Mary Ignatius explaining the basic tenants of the Catholic faith, but in terms that are likely to make devout Catholics feel that their beliefs are being mocked.
No knowledge of Catholic doctrine is necessary to appreciate Durang's sardonic comic intent as Sister Mary Ignatius explains death, sin, heaven, hell, sex and Purgatory, and issues such as why babies who die unbaptized are no longer damned for eternity, but those who died before a recent change in church policy are still burning in hell. She also shares a partial list of those certain to go to hell: Roman Polanski, Peewee Herman, Mick Jagger, Linda Lovelace and "Big John" Holmes, to name five.
Pruden's portrayal will likely stand as one of the best comic performances of the season.
Pruden's co-star, Michael Zachary Yasunaga, is perfect in his TAG debut playing a 7-year-old who is rewarded with a cookie each time he correctly parrots Catholic doctrine.
The story becomes much darker when four former students drop in to perform a badly written play about the life and death of Jesus. Much of the dialogue in this play-within-a-play was obviously taken verbatim from the nun's lectures.
Todd Savoian does a hilarious job animating the small doll that represents Jesus. (Savoian also portrays Joseph in the play-within-a-play; other participants are Monica Kong as the Virgin Mary, and S. Rick Crump and Euphrosyne V.E. Rushford as Misty the talking camel.)
We learn that one of the four former ex-students is homosexual and was seduced while attending seminary, another had an abortion after she was raped, a third has had children out of wedlock, and the fourth is an alcoholic who hits his wife but goes to confession regularly. Guess which one Sister Mary Ignatius commends as a good Catholic certain to go to heaven!
The interplay between Pruden and Yasunaga is so smooth and natural that the play would clearly stand as a clever -- if cutting -- deconstruction of Catholic doctrine if Durang had written it as a two-person show. Durang clearly had darker intentions, however, and director David Farmer's supporting cast succeeds in making the appalling play-within-a-play entertaining, as well.
Farmer's experience as a director is also seen in his decision to open his double-bill with slightly lighter fare. "The Actor's Nightmare" is a one-joke show in which Durang stretches a single joke to the breaking point. A hapless guy who may not even be an actor finds himself backstage at a theater and is expected to step into a role he doesn't remember rehearsing -- no, make that several roles in several radically different plays that he doesn't remember! Almost as confusing for him is the fact that each of his co-stars calls him by a different name. What follows is indeed an actor's nightmare.
Dressed more or less as Hamlet, the dumbfounded guy (Walter Eccles) must first fumble his way through a scene from Noel Coward's "Private Lines" opposite imperious Sarah Siddons (Eden-Lee Murray) as his ex-wife and Dame Ellen Terry (Victoria Gail-White) as the unfortunate bride. Next comes the title role in "Hamlet" opposite Shakespearean actor Henry Irving (John Wythe White), and then similar interpretations of scenes from two equally dissimilar plays.
Eccles does a great job in executing the basic premise of a guy doing his best to fake his way through a series of difficult situations. But a scene in which the poor stand-in is left alone to improvise his way through Hamlet's soliloquy goes on much too long. The scene drags on well past the point where "funny" and "clever" curdle into "tedious" and "painful." The bright comic ambience that Eccles, Murray and Gail-White establish so well in the Coward piece, and which Eccles and White maintain during the first part of "Hamlet," is never fully regained.
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