Sister Act

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SISTER ACT

Photo: Joan Marcus

Cititour.com Review
Movies are being turned into musicals with assembly-line efficiency nowadays, and watching Sister Act, based on the popular Whoopi Goldberg film, you can see the mechanics of creation. It has a pleasant, if unmemorable, score and a talented cast, including a standout performance from Victoria Clark as Mother Superior, but Jerry Zaks' production lacks the divine inspiration that makes a musical infectious and irresistible.

The premise is the same as in the 1992 movie. Lounge singer Deloris Van Cartier (Patina Miller) sees her boyfriend commit murder and hides out in a convent until he can be put behind bars. Book writers Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner have switched the setting from Reno to Philadelphia and the time period to 1977, even though anachronisms (with hip-hop music and the Smurfs, for example) abound. The authors, including Douglas Carter Beane, credited with "additional book material," seem willing to eschew any sort of character or timeline consistency if they can toss in a lame gag. It's as if they're afraid to expose the heart of their musical.

Even the score, by Little Mermaid collaborators Alan Menken (music) and Glenn Slater (lyrics), lacks distinction. Only toward the end of the first act, when the church choir, under Deloris’s leadership, explodes into song and dance does the show really soar—and Lez Brotherston delivers a garish cavalcade of sequined robes and habits fit for the cast of La Cage. But the pseudo ballad "When I Find My Baby," in which Curtis (Kingsley Leggs), Deloris's boyfriend, pines to do her in, fails in its attempt to be subversively clever.

Miller is a bubbly leading lady with a robust voice, but she's too adorable for the streetwise Deloris. Clark brings wonderful depth to a role that in lesser hands could become a thankless stereotype. Overall, the cast gels as an ensemble, but Sister Act isn't a musical that rises to the heights—godly or even Broadway.

By Diane Snyder


Visit the Site
http://www.sisteractbroadway.com

Cast
Patina Miller, Victoria Clark, Fred Applegate, Sarah Bolt, John Treacy Egan, Demond Green, Chester Gregory, Kingsley Leggs, Marla Mindelle, Audrie Neenan, Caesar Samayoa

Open/Close Dates
Opening 3/24/2011
Closing 8/26/2012

Box Office
212-239-6200

Theatre Info
Broadway Theatre
1681 Broadway
New York, NY 10019
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