Whoopi Goldberg enters the stage and the audience goes wild.

Sorry this post is super super late. I've been busy these past couple of weeks reading, writing and coming up with a performance (which went disastrously - but that's another post in and of itself). So I'm finally going to write about Sister Act the musical.

I grew up on the Sister Act movies. I know them by heart, I had the soundtrack of the first one on cassette and my mom and I would take hours watching Back in the Habit because she would rewind our favorite songs over and over. The movies in and of themselves aren't anything spectacular - what makes them so watchable and charming is the one and only Whoopi Goldberg.

The musical originally opened at the Pasadena Playhouse in 2006 and has since then become a mega-musical. It opened last year in London and is opening on Broadway next year. Back in August Goldberg had made a 3-week engagement as Mother Superior (Maggie Smith's character in the films). I was sad to hear I had missed out but wanted to see the musical anyways. So I was really happy to see that Goldberg would be coming back for a 5-performance engagement. I bought a ticket (the most I've ever paid for theatre) and marked it in my diary.

The musical begins with Mother Superior asking for help. So as Goldberg took the stage the audience applauded and cheered for what felt like a solid five minutes. Goldberg motioned for us to settle down so she could carry on with the show. Ah to be a star where all you have to do is enter the stage and the audience goes wild.

The musical is much much different than the movie. Which is why I think it works so well. It is definitely its own entity. There are no songs from the original film at all and it takes place in 1978. Patina Miller who plays Delores has definitely made this character her own - there are no traces of Whoopi's character. She's vivacious, funny and a terrific singer.

Anyways back to Whoopi - watching her really made me think about the star's persona and how it comes to play in performance. I didn't feel like I was watching Whoopi Goldberg be Mother Superior, I was watching Whoopi Goldberg playing herself playing Mother Superior. And I couldn't help but smile. (But now I'm curious to how I would have responded to the show had I seen a regular production). Her interactions with Delores were delivered with the typical Whoopi sass. There's one scene where Whoopi just gestures (that's it) and the audience ate. it. up. And at the finale when she dances it felt like the entire audience wanted to go up there and dance with her. The excitement and energy was felt by all.

I rarely stand at curtain calls and honestly, the musical isn't the most amazing thing I've ever seen but that evening's performance is definitely something I'll remember for a long long time. So I, like every person in the theatre, jumped to my feet when Whoopi came out for her bow.

Other thoughts on the musical itself. Like I said the musical is completely different. There's enough of the charm and characters from the films to satisfy the nostalgia but I'm really happy that the show is completely different. It's difficult to make movies into musicals. With musicals there needs to be spectacle and this show has plenty of the "good" kind of spectacle (unlike the other movie-turned-into-musical). The music by Alan Menke and lyrics by Glenn Slater are effective and catchy --  this show is simply fun. The characterization is a little 2D but I feel that's almost a musical theatre necessity. It has everything to be a huge mega-musical so congrats to Goldberg and everyone involved. Those are incredibly hard to create and maintain. I hope it keeps its charm as it continues to grow.

Here's a video of one of the songs "Raise Your Voice"