Entertainment Events
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding the birth of Jesus. Even for the faithful, a lot of questions go unanswered. They’ve been the subject of debate for centuries, and they’ve defined and redefined people’s spiritual lives. Left relatively uninvestigated: What happened to the Magi’s gold — one of the presents they gave to the infant when he arrived?
This mystery will, at last, get its due investigation at the Long Wharf Theatre from Dec. 8 to Dec. 20, through Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold, a one-woman show featuring Nonie Newton Riley. In this play, however, the gold is more of the comedic variety.
“It’s like Bethlehem: CSI with laughs,” Riley said of the play, a half-scripted, half-improvised production that involves the audience by using the format of the Catholic catechism — that is, a series of questions and answers — in a classroom to get to the bottom of where that gold went.
“The Catholics probably get it at a deep, visceral level,” Riley said, “but it appeals to you no matter who you are. It’s still comedy.”
Christmas Catechism is one of eight catechism plays that grew out of Late Nite Catechism, written by Chicago-based thespians Vicki Quade and Maripat Donovan, which started its run in Chicago in 1993 and is still going strong today (Christmas is written by Donovan with Marc Silvia and Jane Morris). Riley herself has been performing the catechism plays since 2001, and just came off a tour in Florida where she did a different show each night for four nights.
“It was kind of a personal best for me,” she said.
Given Riley’s resumé, that’s saying something. Her theater work has included stints in Second City and other improv groups. She worked as a writer on Candid Camera and earned an Emmy for writing for and performing in a PBS production of Oh, Art!
She credits her upbringing, however, with helping her first develop her comedy chops. “When you are raised in an Irish-Catholic family, an Italian-Catholic family, there’s so much humor in those traditions,” she said.
She grew up in an Irish-Catholic family of nine kids and went to Catholic school. Her great-aunt was a nun. Another relative was a priest. “And two of my cousins got kicked out of seminary,” she added. Today, the fact that she plays a nun and is friends with nuns is “very amusing to my family.”
On one level, Riley said, Christmas Catechism is “just like any classroom. You ask questions and wait for someone to raise their hand and give you an answer.” That’s how the ball gets rolling, as the play explores its central mystery of what happened to the gold — and gets ten audience members dressed up as part of the Nativity.
Riley has found that the play’s classroom setting brings out the comedic best in the people who participate. “It doesn’t feel like a one-person show,” she said. Audience members constantly delight her with their responses to her questions, and the repartee that can result. “After all these years,” she said, “people can still surprise me.”
Class members she deems as misbehaving, she said with a laugh, “either have to pay me a dollar, or they have to sit in the Punish Me chair. And people love to see other people get in trouble. They love it. And they’re so glad it’s not them. I’ve seen eighty-year-olds turn into ten-year-olds — they’ll throw the other person under the bus in a heartbeat.”
The catechism plays even work on clergy. “I’ve done this show at Notre Dame, which was packed with priests and nuns. I’ve done this show for bishops. I’ve done this show for cardinals. So right away we break the fourth wall coming in,” Riley said.
At one performance in Waco, Tex., a few clergy were in the front row, and one priest had a pile of books in his lap. Riley asked if he planned to test her. He said that he did.
“Oh, you have to use a book,” Riley said. “Too bad.”
Christmas Catechism, like all of Quade’s and Donovan’s catechism plays, zeroes in on the idea that “religion doesn’t have to be a serious business,” Riley said. “It’s OK to have fun with it. There’s so much culture that swirls around the Catholic Church, and for those who weren’t raised Catholic, there’s a curiosity about it.”
So in the play itself, “it’s not about the actor. It’s about the person — let them shine,” Riley said. “If you can do that, it’s much more fun. You get to step away from all the politics and the grim news in the world. It’s a couple hours of just laughs.”
Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold runs at the Long Wharf Theater, 222 Sargeant Dr., from Dec. 8 to Dec. 20. Tickets are $35. For more information, click here.