Just have to vent - "Religious" Entertainment

[dgs49]

There is an interactive one-person stage play that has been making the rounds in Pittsburgh for the past few years. It is called, “Late Night Catechism.” I had first heard about it being performed in a small playhouse on the South Side, and all the comments I’d heard were very positive. It was said to be funny and pleasantly interactive. I gather it has been performed all over the U.S. for several years.

Basically, it is an actress dressed in traditional nun garb, pretending to run a religion class (for adults) in the same way that it would have been done in a Catholic school in the 50’s and 60’s.

It now appears that Catholic churches are using it as a small fundraiser, inviting the troupe (one actress and a couple of production people) to bring the production to their church auditorium for a paid performance. They charge an exorbitant admission fee; some of it goes to the entertainment company, some to cost (a small box-lunch is served), and the rest raises money for the parish, or for a particular function at the parish.

In our case, the admission was $100/person, and the proceeds benefitted our multi-parish teen group. We had about 150 people who paid to be in the audience (plus some parish volunteers and hangers-on, who got in for free).

It was a very funny and enjoyable performance, making fun of, mainly, the way things were taught by nuns in Catholic schools, but also going lightly into some of the more bizarre Church teachings (lives of oddball saints, limbo, confusion over the “Immaculate Conception”). There was a lot of audience participation, with the “Sister” asking audience members religion-based questions and making fun of the answers. It lasted about an hour and a half overall, with a short intermission, and of course at the end of it, there was a request for additional donations for the youth group.

But at the end of the performance, the “Sister” introduced a musical skit that was put on by 8 or 10 parishioners. They were dressed up as nuns (with different habits) and one priest, and they were lip-synching and dancing to pre-recorded adaptations of old pop music. For example, the song, “I will follow him,” was modified to be a religious-theme song, arranged pretty much as the pop-original was. The recorded music itself was not bad.

Of course I was over-reacting, but I found this post-performance production to be extremely irritating. What in God’s name possessed these idiots to think that 150 people who paid to see a professional stage comedy would be entertained by seeing them lip-synching (badly), dancing (badly), and basically falling all over themselves with mirth at their own antics? Maybe if we had all been drunk…as the “entertainers” appeared to be.

Two words kept going through my mind as I watched this interminable embarrassment (it lasted about 10-12 minutes): “Captive Audience.” I would wager that no one in the audience other than PERHAPS the spouses of the people on stage was the least bit entertained by this dreadful performance, and I personally would have paid a few bucks to have been excused from witnessing it.

It occurred to me while it was going on that if the same thing had been done by members of the Youth Group, it would have been cute and entertaining, and a lot more enjoyable. But to have 10 (or so) middle-aged adults from the parish using this occasion to show off like this – while the audience was compelled to sit and watch it - was simply embarrassing. I can’t even imagine what an outsider who just came to see the stage production would have thought of it.

What would possess a dozen otherwise sane adults to consider this a good idea? They obviously spent some time and money putting it together, and it is inconceivable to me that through that whole process not one person had the sense – I’m sure the pastor was aware of it as well – to say, “Wait a minute; this is stupid.”

[Lord Jim]

For example, the song, “I will follow him,” was modified to be a religious-theme song, arranged pretty much as the pop-original was.

They lifted that from Sister Act....

[Gob]

Been there, seen that, got the t-shirt.

I have in the past done some stand up comedy spots for charity. Guaranteed during rehearsals someone on "the committee" would chip in with; "Oh, and myself and a few friends have this absolutely hysterical skit we'll be doing at half time!"

I knew always to get to the bar before then. Fucking amateurs.