Las enseñanzas de la hermana Mary

Christopher Durang's daring play SISTER MARY IGNATIUS EXPLAINS IT ALL TO YOU has finally been made into a film by Showtime. And, while watching, I asked myself a seemingly appropriate question: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The movie takes place at Sister Mary Ignatius' 25th annual Christmas Eve Mass. While Sister Mary gives her usual sermons, four friends who were in Sister Mary's Sunday school class reunite to (if you'll pardon the pun) raise Hell at the Mass, by restaging their Nativity play as a farce of Sister Mary's lectures.

This part of the movie is very funny. The lighthearted pokes at Catholicism will have many rolling with laughter, and the Nativity play had me in stitches.

Unfortunately, the movie takes a dark, disparaging turn that entirely ruins the movie. While the same shocking turn was played up for laughs in Durang's play, here, it is played up for full shock value. By the end of the movie, you'll have forgotten nearly all that is good about it and only focus on the last 20 disturbing minutes.

In short, SISTER MARY is, for the most part, a good movie. However, do NOT watch it in its entirety, or the experience will be ruined for you.

Supposedly the play on which this movie is based was a laugh-riot on stage, but the filmed version is a mess. The playwright as well as the cast and director can't seem to figure out whether this is a comedy, a tragedy, or a melodrama. As a result, the film is all of these -- and therefore, none of these.

I love good satire, and I was hoping that this would be a gritty spoof of those tunnel-visioned fundamentalists who take themselves so seriously that they begin making up their own religion, never realizing that they have sadly strayed from any orthodox teachings. But I was severely disappointed in this mish-mash.

Back to the old hell book with this script!

Just to add two bits to this. I, too, studied with a nun with a male saint's name, Sister Joseph Maureen. That's why I always quipped -- even before seeing Durang's play -- "The ones with the male saints' names are the worst." Sister Joseph Maureen was such a terror that I was sent to a psychologist at 7.

As to who is and isn't a "nun," for 99 percent of those in the Roman Catholic Church, both contemplative (cloistered) sisters and apostolic (out in the world as teachers, nurses and, nowadays, other occupations) sisters are referred to as "nuns." Indeed, in 1984, when I wrote my master's thesis on modern nuns, apostolic sisters freely referred to themselves and others in the apostolic orders as nuns. The distinction is not much observed in everyday speech.

Finally Chris Durang's controversial 1981 one-act play SISTER MARY IGNATIUS EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU has been brought to the screen - the small screen - by the boundary-pushing SHOWTIME, appropriately enough. Durang himself penned the screenplay and effectively opens up what is inherently part lecture, part stand-up, and part vaudeville. The major problem faced is how to deal with the "audience" that the theatre provided in the form of ticket buyers each evening.

Durang re-sets the action of his "Nun's Story" at Christmas, the eve of Sister Mary's 25th Annual lecture, and works in a variety of wayward Catholic parishoners attending Sister's obligatory holiday talk-fest. Among them are a pair of teens who have been having pre-marital sex, a nearly deaf devotee of Sister's who just likes to see people smile, a bitter divorcee (producer Victoria Tennent), as well as a dysfunctional couple (Martin Mull is the hubby, and his expressions during Sister's rants are priceless) who'd rather be shopping. Primary among Sister's guests are four students from her 1959 class, who have decided to re-enact their Nativity pageant in order to embarrass the strict nun. This quartet consists of a variety of folk Sister now classifies as "going to burn in hell" and are led by the particularly bitter Angela DiMarco (a stunning turn by Laura San Giacomo), whose name has been changed from the play from Diane Symonds, one of the few text changes made. Once they arrive, Sister's best laid plans go awry and the lecture reels wildly out of control.

Marshall Brickman's precise direction (including some nifty flashbacks to sepia-toned 1959) keep Durang's humor intact, but it is the "star turn" of Diane Keaton as Sister Mary who single-handedly destroys the tone of Durang's greatest work. The role is a demanding one, no doubt, but Keaton's approach is erratic, random, and leans toward humor where pathos is required. The delicate balance of SISTER MARY relies upon how "real" Sister seems to us. Keaton treats the character as a stand-up comedian, we never see a glimpse of her soul. Sister Mary really is a frightened and insecure woman whose reality and way of life is slipping quickly away. Half grandmother, half dictator, the habit's original owner Elizabeth Franz was one of the few to hit the exact right notes and she's sorely missed here. While I'm glad to see the piece finally lensed, I'll have to be happy with my memories of the stage production for the "real" Sister Mary Ignatius.

For a Christian , ignoring the confession , it has high potential to be pure blasphemy. For a not Christian, I suppose, it can be bizarre and absurd. I saw in the last scenes not as a film/play about Christianity and its message, not as a film about bigotism but as a story about teaching as refuge against life. Diane Keaton gives a splendid portrait of profound loneliness, need of power in absolute forms, about isolation in herself of a sister- obvious, Mary ignatius is a sister, not a nun and a precise indictment against sins, cruel mistakes of Romano - Catholic Church. It is not a black comedy, but good occasion to reflection. About soulless faith , about refuges and real meaning of education. A not comfortable film about forms of moral blindness .