Charles Busch beatifies ‘The Divine Sister’

Writer-actor grandly leads a disorderly order of nuns

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Playwright-performer Charles Busch often has paid humorous homage to vintage stars and their screen vehicles, and since Loretta Young, Audrey Hepburn and Rosalind Russell are just a few among the icons who have portrayed nuns, it's a natural for Busch to get into the habit with his latest comedy, "The Divine Sister."

Opening Wednesday at the SoHo Playhouse, "The Divine Sister" finds Busch in excellent form as the upbeat Mother Superior of a crumbling convent-school in Pittsburgh in the 1960s. "We are living in a time of great social change," says the Mother Superior. "We must do everything in our power to stop it."

Never fear that Busch is satirizing the Catholic church here; instead, he has concocted a 90-minute romp that sees the indomitable Mother Superior grapple with disorderly doings at her convent including a postulant who fakes miracles (Amy Rutberg) and a mysterious nun from Germany (Alison Fraser) who pursues a Da Vinci Code-type intrigue in the crypts below.

The conversion of a wealthy atheist (Jennifer Van Dyck) and the reappearance of an old flame (Jonathan Walker) from the Mother Superior's racier times as a crime reporter also figure into Busch's very funny fabrication of multiple cinematic threads.

A cheerful throwback to Busch's earlier Theatre in Limbo days when his plots were silly and his comedy often bawdy a-la "Vampire Lesbians of Sodom," "The Divine Sister" features among its foolish charms a wicked bit — possibly derived from "The Sound of Music" — when Mother Superior's grand transatlantic accents renders a seemingly innocent sentence into something hilariously filthy.

Not incidentally, this ribald conversation also involves Busch's frequent stage sidekick Julie Halston, who is dandy in a tailor-made role as a wisecracking Mistress of Novices (and school wrestling coach) increasingly fraught with sexual frustrations.

Another memorable scene is a witty flashback to Mother Superior's former journalist days when Busch appears in 1940s couture and pompadour to wing through some wildly overlapping dialogue with Walker that suggests "His Girl Friday" on fast-forward, complete with Busch's character making a speedy exit with one hand clamped onto her hat just like Roz Russell.

Oh, and did I mention that Mother Superior strums the guitar and sings — or at least syncs?

"The Divine Sister" is giddy with such arrant nonsense, played broadly but precisely for laughs by the company under Carl Andress' swift direction. A sibilant, sinister Fraser is especially droll as the Teutonic sister with a master plan all her own. Designer B.T. Whitehill provides some amusingly sketchy décor, which among other items features a chandelier created entirely with plastic utensils and plates.

No one specific cinema legend is evoked by Busch in his delightful portrayal of the Mother Superior but as usual he reigns supreme over this anything but conventional comedy.

"The Divine Sister" continues an open-end run at the SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam St., New York. Call (212) 352-3101 or visit www.divinesisteronstage.com.