Catholic School Girls
Catholic School Girls
By Casey Kurtti
Directed by Tara Corliss
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park FL</strong>
Many people who grew up in the Catholic school system harbor deep seated bitterness over their treatment, and after sitting through this brutal childhood recollection you will appreciate the benefits the 95 Theses brought to the rest of us. We follow four young ladies from first grade to 8th, sharing in their joys, sorrows, and humiliations all suffered in the names of God’s Love and a Good Catholic Schooling. We begin in 1962, the year of Jack Kennedy and The Beatles. Colleen (Brenna Arden Warner) is the brassy Irish girl, and Wanda (Toni Claire) is the precocious Polish girl with the well off parents. Maria Theresa (Rachel West) sadly sucks her thumb under a desk and Elizabeth (Megan Borkes) is the girl coloring with Cray-Pas instead of the biblically ordained Crayolas. The girls alternate playing the role of Classroom Nuns, all of who are well intentioned, frustrated, and capable of managing a death camp were Cardinal Sheen or the Pope to ask them. Everyone gets a killer monolog, ranging from the Maria Teresa’s stories of cowering in the face of her abusive father to Colleen’s humiliation when womanhood attacks her in the class room. The most heartfelt came at the end – Elizabeth, always the trouble maker denies her faith after the death of her grandmother. It’s a common rant in the face of loss and while she denies her faith, elderly Sister Mary Agnes (Clair) encourages her to hold that anger in her heart. She knows Elizabeth will eventually come back around to Jesus.
Every evil of the midcentury Catholic school system passes through here: the blatant racism, the use of humiliation as a teaching tool, and the shaking down of children for their milk money. You also see the resilience of the children – they maintain optimism and hope for the future, knowing some day they will be set free to live life as they wish. Director Corliss makes us wince in our seats as these girls mature, and I for one find new hope in the Protestant Reformation.
For more information, please visit http://www.breakthroughtheatre.com
