STAGE REVIEW : How Many Jokes About Nuns Fit in 1 Production?

The premise of “Nunsense” is whether five nuns will raise enough money from a talent show to bury the final four of 54 sisters who died after eating the vichyssoise prepared by their cook, Sister Julia Child of God.

But the real force behind the show, now in its San Diego premiere at the Sixth Avenue Playhouse, is how many nun jokes writer Dan Goggin can get away with in two short hours.

The answer, after predictable references to Attila the NUN, CarNUN Miranda and Butch Cassidy and the NUNdance Kid, is:

A lot more than you might imagine.

“Nunsense,” now in its fifth year Off-Broadway, is the debut offering of a new for-profit company, T.S. Productions. It’s fast, funny and feather-light, bearing not a hint of the dark undertones of Christopher Durang’s “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You.”

Goggin’s humor is more of a pass-the-Mary Magdelene Tarts-and-St. Joan’s-Barbecued Ribs variety.

These nuns LIKE being nuns--enough to make the lifestyle a habit. They revel in firing up a crowd with “Ave Maria,” sung to the tune of “Hava Nagila,” reprimanding latecomers with a tap-tap-tapping ruler and passing out St. Christopher cards to anyone who answers their questions correctly.

St. Christopher is no longer a saint, one nun explains, so they were able to get a whole box of the cards at a discount.

Sure, they indulge in a bit of backstage habit-stabbing: Sister Mary Hubert, the second in command, thinks she would be a far better leader than Mother Superior, who used convent money to buy a Betamax before the last four sisters were buried, thus precipitating the current crisis.

But the strife--if you can call it that--is all in the service of comedy. The charm, under the direction of James A. Strait, is turned on full-throttle.

And the cast delivers.

In a quintet of fine voices, musically directed by Heidi Lynn, Pamela Tomassetti as Sister Mary Amnesia and Nanci Hunter as Sister Mary Hubert are the knockouts--Tomassetti with her supple soprano and Hunter with her brassy Broadway sound. All are nicely backed by an offstage four-piece band.

Devon Yates, as the dancing Sister Mary Leo, puts the pink ballet slippers under her habit to graceful use, Stephanie Holton hits the most targets as the sharp-tongued Sister Mary Robert Anne, who desperately wants to be a star, and Dianne Holly, better known to San Diego audiences as the talented, longtime costume designer at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company, proves herself a capable actress as the serious but befuddled Mother Superior.

J. D. Burns keeps the choreography simple. His most memorable contribution is designed for Yates in “The Dying Nun Ballet,” in which she dances the story of a nun dying from the vichyssoise to the music of “Swan Lake.” She wears a headdress reminiscent of Sally Fields’ flying nun and finishes, as she’s ushered offstage, with a takeoff on Fields’ Oscar speech:

“They liked me, they really liked me.”

The dullest element of the show is the set, designed by Scott Busath. The nuns have to do their talent show on the set of “Grease,” because they are borrowing the stage from the eighth-grade class that is doing the show. Although the requisite posters of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean are up there, the overall effect lacks the colors needed to offset the black and white costumes of the nuns.

The skillful lighting by Alexandra Pontone, which keeps the attention focused on the performers, compensates.

Still, for all their frothy, lightweight banter, it’s hard to forget that the most potent drama in “Nunsense” is not on the stage, but behind it.

The show is scheduled to finish its run Aug. 26 at the Sixth Avenue Playhouse, and the producers, James A. Strait and Paul D. Taylor, need to finish their run successfully to win back their investment.

So, in a way, even as the nuns stage their singing, dancing and comedy routines to bury the four sisters, T.S. Productions is staging this fictional talent show to raise money to jump-start its own company.

Will the five Little Sisters of Hoboken do the trick? Can the show, arriving as it does amid a glut of comic summer fare, find its own following?

It all hinges on whether San Diego audiences will prove as loyal to them as they were to the long-running “Six Women With Brain Death or Expiring Minds Want to Know” at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, or the five-woman cast of “A . . . My Name is Alice” in its limited but sold-out run at the Old Globe.

Is there something magical about funny, musical all-women ensembles? The future of “Nunsense” may hold the answer to the question.

“NUNSENSE”

By Dan Goggin. Director is James A. Strait. Musical direction by Heidi Lynn. Choreography by J.D. Burns. Sets by Scott Busath. Lighting by Alexandra Pontone. Stage directors are Sandra Leah Halloran and Susan A. Virgilio. With Dianne Holly, Stephanie Holton, Nanci Hunter, Pamela Tomassetti and Devon Yates. At 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 26. Tickets are $20. At 1620 Sixth Ave., San Diego, (619) 278-TIXS.