How to go
What: “Nunsense”
Where: Fairfield Community Arts Center, 411 Wessel Drive, Fairfield
When: May 20-29; 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays
Cost: $12-$14
More info: 513-867-5348 or www.fairfield-city.org/cac
Ordinarily, one wouldn’t think a story that opens with 52 dead nuns would qualify as comedic material, but, according to legions of fans and the Fairfield Footlighters, who are staging the play this weekend and next, “Nunsense” manages to make it quite funny. Indeed, one of the characters refers to the accidental mass poisoning by the convent cook as “The Last Supper.”
“It isn’t that irreverent, though,” said Heidi Schiller, Arts and Programs manager for Fairfield’s Parks and Recreation Department and the director of the play. “There are a lot of nice songs about being Catholic. They are nuns who are happy to be nuns. But they have fun bits and moments of frustration. They’re probably more realistically portrayed than (the nuns) in ‘The Sound of Music.’ ”
“Nunsense” was relatively free of controversy when it originally opened in 1986. It went on to become the second-longest show in off-Broadway history, spawning six sequels and three spin-offs, with performers such as Sally Struthers, Phyllis Diller and Rue McClanahan participating at one point or other.
In the play, following the accident, the nuns have to raise a prodigious amount of money to pay for all the burials, but due to Mother Superior skimming some cash to buy a plasma TV (it was a VCR in the 1986 original), there are still four corpses remaining in the convent freezer. The nuns then decide to stage a variety show of mostly singing and dancing to pay for the remaining burials.
“There isn’t a strong plot arc so much as that it’s just a fun show,” Schiller said. “It’s about what they do onstage. There’s a nun who can’t remember her name, called Sister Mary Amnesia. There are a lot of convent jokes.”
Schiller cited popularity and personal familiarity as the reasons why Footlighters staged this particular show.
“I knew the original, and sometimes the original is the best,” she said. “It was a very popular musical and is a phenomenon. There are now nine ‘Nunsense’-style shows out there. Depending on how things go, our board might consider doing others. There’s a Christmas version called ‘Nuncrackers.’ ”
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