✭✭✭✩✩

written and directed by Alistair Newton

Ecce Homo, SummerWorks Festival, The Theatre Centre, Toronto

August 6-14, 2009

The Ecstasy of Mother Teresa mixes cabaret-style comedic and dramatic sketches with song-and-dance numbers in too scattershot a fashion either to illuminate or satirize its subject.  Is it surprising a devout Catholic nun should espouse Vatican doctrine against birth-control and abortion or regard the poor as blessed?  Performers whose forte is singing, not acting, give lively accounts of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s reworded “Mother T. Superstar” and several versions of Tom Lehrer’s “Vatican Rag.”  However, Kaitlyn Regehr’s portrayal of Mother Teresa’s crisis of faith is so quietly moving and so deeply felt it undermines noisy attempts around it to debunk the woman.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-08-08.

Photo: Kaitlyn Regehr as Mother Teresa.