Catholic School Girls
By Casey Kurtti
Directed by Tara Corliss
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park FL

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

The Maids
By Jean Genet
Directed by Christine Robison
Mad Cow Theatre, Orlando, FL

In French existentialism as in quantum cryptography, individual choice means nothing and whatever happens occurs with no significance beyond the moment. The Mistress (Jamie-Lyn Hawkins) rescues a pair of sisters from some disaster, most likely The War. Solange (Marion C. Marsh) and Claire (Mia Reeves) serve as maids, and when the mistress is out, they play act dominance and submission scenes from her life. The Mistress is both generous and condescending; she offers gifts and withdraws them, while the sisters are obsequious and bitter. A man appears in The Mistresses life, the sisters take steps, and things go badly. And true to the French way, when things go badly, you can always take the easy way out, and let the staff clean up the mess later.

As incestuous lesbian domination dramas go, this is one of the best. Solange struts around in her Dr Frankenfurter bustier and waves here arms flamboyantly on a claustrophobics and futzy set while the nearly dissolute Mistress hones here nails and ennui. But it’s Claire that knows how to wield the riding crop – the others give it the old college try, but only Claire can get Solange on her knees and anywhere else she desires. There are squicky moments here, Claire gropes The Mistress who smiles and acts like she only adjusting her dress, and the servants mime a rape scene, but neither seems to enjoy it. It’s not the sex that’s bothersome but the violation of the incest taboo, and the even more shocking violation of the class taboo.

Challenge lurks in every corner – challenges for the cast, for the audience, and to our preconceptions of the social order. I was grilled by several Mad Cow staff as to the meaning of this show, but all I can do is sadly shake my head, and look upon it as the wreckage of Europe’s moral and intellectual self-esteem in the aftermath of a calamity. When you sweep away the old order and fail to provide a better new order, don’t be shocked by the Communists, the New Agers, or the Tea Party. They’re all just people groping for meaning and bosoms in this bubble of oxygen lost in a pointless void.

For more information on Mad Cow, please visit http://www.madcowtheatre.com