Rider University world premiere’s Michael Friel’s comedy about growing up in a working-class Catholic family.
By: Stuart Duncan
The Children of Fatima is a remarkable, moving memory play about growing up in a working-class Catholic neighborhood in Philadelphia in the early 1960s. It has sharp shafts of insight, many moments that tickle the funny bone even as they massage the intellect, and characters one suspects will stay with you longer than most. It is being given a world premiere at the Yvonne Theater on the campus of Rider University, a rare coup for a theater program that is earning attention throughout the area.
Any time someone offers a work about Catholic schooling or the like, you can expect fireworks. Nunsense and Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? may be side-splitting riots, but somebody is always claiming "obscene."
Thus The Children of Fatima has been labeled "controversial." A New York-based group the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has called the play "offensive to some Catholics." Of course no one in the group has seen the show, but then it’s always easier to knock something if you haven’t seen it.
The British poet William Wordsworth once observed that one should always recollect emotions in tranquility. Playwright Michael Friel has done just that. He introduces us to Jerry, a serious, perhaps too intense youngster, desperately trying to grow up. Jerry is a lone child in a dysfunctional family alcoholic father, fiercely religious mother. We also meet Jerry’s two best friends: Tony, a slightly cynical, rule-bending, happy-go-lucky boy, and Bernadette, tom-boyish but definitely ready for femininity and headed for heartbreak.
We also meet the principal course markers for his development: Sister Regina Coeli (R.C. to her charges, but behind her back), tough, unrelenting and perhaps even a little sadistic, and Father McMullen, dispenser of contrition and perhaps an imbiber as well.
Friel’s writing is so clever that it may disguise the fine directing and acting needed to show it off. Director Richard Homan has a cast of seven that is as fine as any of the past five years at the school. Freshman Matthew Cook is our Jerry (and the narrator as well, à la Brighton Beach Memoirs). He easily steps into and out of the spotlight on his teen years, empathetic and impressive.
Sophomore Jaime Parker and freshman Arnaldo Ortiz play his neighborhood pals, Bernadette and Tony, both with an innocent charm that leaves you aching. Allison Martynovych, a senior theater major, is teamed with Luke Klein, a freshman, as Jerry’s mom and dad, both stunning in hard-bitten roles.
Rob Cutler, a sophomore, is a comforting Father McMullen, perhaps devoted to the wine as much as the devotionals. And senior theater major Carrie Bush steals most of the laughs with a devastating portrayal of Sister Regina, the keeper of the catechism.
In short, a wonderful new play from a new playwright, pulled from his boyhood and given as a gift to us all. See it before you yell and scream about being offended.
The Children of Fatima continues at the Yvonne Theater, Rider University, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrence, through April 26. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. Tickets cost $10, $5 students/staff. For information, call (609) 896-5303. On the Web: www.rider.edu

