Catechism of Adolescence : Honest ‘Catholic School Girls’ Gets High Marks for Its Response to the Sins and Virtues of Growing Up

Casey Kurtti’s “Catholic School Girls,” at Orange Coast College’s Drama Lab, isn’t really a play. It is more of a chronology of four girls from the first grade to their eighth grade graduation from St. George’s School in Yonkers. That’s just fine, because it gives Kurtti, like others who have lived through the terrors of ruler-wielding nuns, the chance to get it all off his chest.

But Kurtti takes it one step further, enabling us to watch these students as they grow emotionally and intellectually. The playwright’s revenge against the Catholic sisters is tempered with affection and an honesty that rings all too true.

The girls, from Irish American Elizabeth McHugh (Kimberly Marie Fischer) to Polish American Wanda Sluska (Patricia Nelson), are a cross-section of the Catholic children attending the school. Maria Theresa Russo (Amanda Helene Diaz) has a cold, abusive father who threatens to break the legs of her current crush at the graduation dance; Colleen Dockery (Denise Carolyn Moharsky), who in the first grade hopes to be a nun, has by graduation opted for forbidden short skirts and has had a naive encounter in the back seat of an automobile.

It is a very funny play laced with some bittersweet wisdom and a few pungent insights into the rigidity of organized religion. Director John Ferzacca provides further insights in his staging, with bright tempos where they should be and deeper rhythms flowing in and out as the script delves into the private and often irreverent lives of the girls. It is a seamless production, from direction to technical effects to performances.

Moharsky, Diaz, Nelson and Fischer go beyond the playwright’s sometimes simplistic characterizations and give their schoolgirls inner lives that make their scenes sparkle. This is especially true in the early scenes, where their underplaying makes the difficult job of playing first-graders look easy, and their deft transitions from grade to grade, from age to age, are impeccable.

Another tricky job for actors--lengthy monologues directed toward the audience, to provide glances into the torment of growing up in semi-dysfunctional families and the odd view of the more intimate aspects of girlhood--are handled by the actresses with taste and poignancy. Moharsky’s monologue about having her first period during class, and her mistreatment by a nun as a result, is powerful, and Fischer’s final speech denying the godhood of Jesus is stunning.

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The teaching sisters are a joy. Leslie Holland is charming, and at moments hilarious, as the aging Sister Mary Agnes, whose creeping senility, mocked by the girls, cannot hide a basically loving nature, especially when she introduces them to the memory of one of her early boyfriends, Rufus, who gives her advice in her cluttered imagination.

As the stoic but open Sister Mary Germaine, Joan Meissenberg is excellent, as is Erin L. Autry’s rigid Sister Mary Thomasina. But the strongest performance as a nun comes from Dru Alexander as Sister Mary Lucille, the sadistic and uncompromising tyrant who has the girls in both the first and eighth grades and often reminds them that she has “eyes in the back of her head, put there by Jesus Christ Himself.”

* “Catholic School Girls,” Drama Lab, Orange Coast College, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $5-$9. (714) 432-5932. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

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Denise Carolyn Moharsky: Colleen Dockery

Amanda Helene Diaz: Maria Theresa Russo

Patricia Nelson: Wanda Sluska

Kimberly Marie Fischer: Elizabeth McHugh

Dru Alexander: Sister Mary Lucille

Joan Meissenberg: Sister Mary Germaine

Leslie Holland: Sister Mary Agnes

Erin L. Autry: Sister Mary Thomasina

Amanda Macadam: Voice of Principal

An Orange Coast College Department of Theatre Arts production of a play by Casey Kurtti, directed by John Ferzacca. Scenic design: David Scaglione. Lighting design: Brock Cilley. Stage manager: Quinten Powell.