2nd Story Theatre’s Catholic School Girls Will Never Be Better than it is Right Now

Catholic School Girls is a memory play written by Casey Kurtti and currently playing at 2nd Story Theatre in Warren. The play follows four girls as they grow up together from their first days of St. George’s School in Yonkers, New York, through their eventual graduation from eighth grade, and into adolescence. Set in the 1960s and written, as the title suggests, about girls attending Catholic school, the play switches between classroom and church scenes, tied together by confessional soliloquies about family, faith and the metamorphosis of girls into young women.

Not all theater needs to carry the weight of the heavens or evoke the depths of hell. Levity and entertainment are inherently worthy. Yet, notwithstanding masterful direction and excellent performances, Kurtti’s writing misses the mark. By straddling the chasm between the cultural paradigm shift of the tumultuous 1960s and the adolescent hijinks of young girls, the script tries too hard to be touching and forgets to tell a story.

Director Ed Shea staged the play with the simple precision and clipped pace for which he is known. Shea does not so much block a play as he choreographs actors to the tempo and rhythm called for by the text. The play moved along smoothly and seamlessly, without an unearned pause long enough to let the audience dwell on the heightened realism. Performed on a set painted all black, Max Ponticelli’s design appears inspired by the gothic architecture for which the Catholic church is known. The sparse set was a perfect backdrop for the memories of youth, in which everything seems bigger.

While the play borders on being trite, the performances are what save this memory play from being lost from the memories of its viewers. The eight roles are played by four women, all veterans of 2nd Story. Each actor plays one of the four girls, in addition to supporting as one of the nuns who taught at St. George’s. Lara Hakeem plays the deliciously awkward Maria Theresa, one of a seemingly endless brood of children. Ashley Hunter Kenner gives depth to Wanda, the archetypal “goodie two shoes” only child. With a genuine need to please, Wanda steals scenes by merely reacting to antics. Kenner also dissolves from Wanda into Sister Mary Agnes, the oldest of the school teachers, transforming from wide-eyed tween to hunched octogenarian in the course of walking a few steps. Erin Olsen executes her role beautifully as the brazen Colleen, seemingly unable to refrain from stirring trouble, then switching into a perfect Irish brogue as the cruelly undermining Sister Mary Lucille. Valerie Westgate delivers the splendidly nuanced performance theatergoers have come to expect from her as Elizabeth, who undergoes a transformation of existential uncertainty.

Behavioral psychologist and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman said of memory, “Oddly enough the remembering self doesn’t always know what the experiencing self went through. The remembering self tells itself a story about what happened and that story doesn’t always reflect the true experiences of what went on in the past.” In this case, the memories may be true or exaggerated. It is irrelevant, however, as the episodes as written fail to form a compelling story. Catholic School Girls is executed to its fullest potential as a vehicle for reflecting the spirit of the words with which it was written. The theater experience of this play could not be better than it was today. This is a testament to the level of talent possessed by 2nd Story’s cast. Yet, as a choice of play, it lacks the fire and music for either distinction or for distraction; and, therefore, falls somewhere tepidly in between.

Catholic School Girls  runs Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 2:30pm at 2nd Story Theatre “Downstage.” 28 Market St, Warren. Call 401-247-4200 or visit 2ndstorytheatre.com for tickets and information.