SISTER ACT - THE MUSICAL

Ave Maria! Watching SISTER ACT - THE MUSICAL at The Pasadena Playhouse is like doing penance. Based on the hit movie minus the comic talents of Whoppi Goldberg, this one joke show is as hip as a RNC convention and as soulful as a community theater production of DREAMGIRLS.

Under the lifeless direction of Peter Schneider, this clunky unfocused production is missing the comedic spirit that made the movie work.

The trite sophomoric book lacks logic or real human behavior. Chock full of 70’s pop culture, it’s not enough to keep us interested culminating to a ridiculous ending that lacks the needed infectiousness to send us out dancing and singing.

The music by Alan Menken (Little Shop Of Horrors, Little Mermaid, Beauty & The Beast) is misguided in it’s 70’s blacksploitation groove that already sounds old. There’s a couple exceptions that gives us a glance at the possibility of the show, “Lady In The Long Black Dress” in which hit men show how to seduce the nuns, using their male prowess to entice their feminine wiles, beautifully sung is a hysterical number, this is the highlight of the show. “Sunday Morning Fever” is the requisite nuns choir disco anthem, fun and infectious, it opens the second act with gangbusters. The nuns singing that the bikers and strippers in a biker bar are “Going To Hell” has to be seen to be believed!

The casting director should be damned for eternity, the mediocre ensemble isn’t quite up to the level of professional. Dawnn Lewis in the Whoppi Goldberg role Deloris Van Cartier is neither a comic actress nor a powerhouse singer, one wonders how she landed this pivotal part. Described as “Satan in high heels,” I kept wondering how much better Daphnie Rubin-Vega would have made the whole thing. Elizabeth Ward Land as Mother Superior is equally as ineffectual as “Hitler in a habit.” As “Sweaty Eddie,” David Jennings gives an incredibly stiff performance as the police officer/love interest but has a Luther Vandross-like ballad in which he sheds all his stiffness “I Could Be That Man,” beautifully sung and danced, if only he could be that man for the rest of the show. Only Amy K. Murray as Sister Mary Patrick stands out with the comedic energy and timing sorely lacking with the rest of the cast.

The choreography is fun when the music rarely breaks out. The costumes are very colorful and glitzy, but the lighting and set seems tacky and uninspired.

Though problematic, the entirely white Pasadena audience, not having to expel any energy, loved it which assures SISTER ACT - THE MUSICAL could be a sure fire hit with the Midwestern tourists in Vegas.