I love nuns. I love great voices. So there are the two reasons I was able to sit through the absolutely ridiculous Tony-nominated musical SISTER ACT which just opened at The Boston Opera House. Whoopi starred in the film (the pitch meeting:”We’ll take a bunch a nuns, dress ’em in sequins and make em sing disco-gospel tunes. We’ll make a fortune on Catholics and Donna Summer wannabes!”) and produced the show on Broadway.

The book– and I use the term loosely–involves a “disco diva” named Dolores Van Cartier (the gloriously voiced Ta’rea Campbell) witnesses her boyfriend Curtis (thuggishly played by Kingsley Leggs) commit a murder.  She hides out in a convent, instantly finds herself at home with a gaggle of goofy nuns, and teaches them to sing their asses off. They blow the Sunday collection plate to high heaven and end up saving the Church from the clutches of two greedy antique dealers!

Then things get crazy. The nuns all sound like Aretha, the thugs are total nincompoops, and the plot fulfills the promise of lyrics like, “The world can be your oyster– when you live inside a cloister.” Act I was “like the stations of the cross without the laughs,” as one good sister put it;  but Act II had a wild, upbeat nuttiness about it, that made me feel like I was living some kind of Catholic schoolgirl Saturday Night Fever dream.  We’re talking insane production numbers involving nuns bedazzled and boogalooing in sequined habits, nuns in pajamas with their wimples left ON, the church pastor channeling Barry White in front of a humongous statue of the Blessed Virgin glittering like a disco ball–I nearly lost my mind.

None of the songs are memorable –but the voices ring true: Ta’rea Campbell– not as funny and loose as she should be, does have a voice of great richness and range. E. Clayton Cornelious has a beautiful round baritone and evinces great vulnerability in his big solo as the lovelorn cop “Sweaty Eddie.” In Act II Hollis Resnik as Mother Superior sings her soul out– with her veil off! And finally, Lael Van Keuren as the shy little postulant Mary Robert sends us soaring with a voice of tremendous power, spirit, and yearning. The Opera House could barely contain the sound.

The whole shebang ends on a high note with the entire company sharing some mighty sweet sentiment–“Spread the Love Around.”  Ah, it took me back to my own Catholic girlhood. So THAT’S what was going on behind those convent walls. I knew it.

SISTER ACT presented by Broadway in Boston is only here until February 3!