Return of the Nuns

Nunsense II, now playing at Georgetown's Palace Theater, doesn't make much sense, but that's beside the point. It's fun.

The show never stops. How the small, five-member cast can keep up with all the singing, dancing, and joke-telling is beyond me. The energy was contagious and the audience gave the ensemble a well-deserved standing ovation. Each individual member of the group was strong, a real accomplishment for a small-town civic theater. Fio's favorite, as always, is Sister Robert Ann.

The Nunsense series is probably twenty years old now, and many of the jokes wouldn't mean anything to a young audience, but the average age of a Georgetown theater-goer is about sixty, so the audience caught most of the outdated references.

Fio's major gripe was that everyone was over-miked, which made the sound piercing. Husband turned down his hearing aids and Fio closed off her ears. Then there was this weird echo that occurred from time to time for dramatic effect. Husband's theory is that the community theater sound system salesman had stopped off in Georgetown and the Palace bought the whole works. But why? The Palace is a small theater with good acoustics. It shouldn't need a special sound system.

Also, the singers seemed to be having a problem from time to time with pitch. Husband, more musically attuned than Fio, said that they weren't quite making the necessary key changes. All Fio knows is that the chorus in the opening number of the second act ("Angeline") sounded like squalling cats.

But it doesn't matter. Fio came out of the theater singing to herself and even dancing a little, so Nunsense served its purpose.