STAGE REVIEW : Little Sisters of Pandemonium in ‘Nunsense’

“Nunsense� lives up to its name. It’s “Much Ado about Nunthing,� “Pun and Tell’er� and “Sister Mary Ignites You� all in one. The prevailing faith among this fractured order of Little Sisters from Hoboken is disorder. These are the Little Sisters of Pandemonium.

Dan Goggin, who created and staged the “Nunsense� that opened Wednesday at the Henry Fonda Theatre, has had a field day playing God. Or at least archbishop.

Aside from its name, the show also lives up to its derivation--from a series of comical greeting cards (created by Goggin) featuring Marilyn Farina as a nun of questionable habits. It thrives on a diet of fast-paced, laff-a-minute one-liners. Putting Farina (Sister Mary Cardelia--get it?) on stage, creating four other nuns to get up there with her, writing some songs and sketching in a mini-plot took a couple of years. The result is a relentless musical comedy revue, with an occasional blackout, whose only claim to originality is that it’s entirely performed by neo-nuns.

Due to some tainted vichyssoise (misprepared by Sister Julia, child of God--get it? Get it?) 52 nuns dropped dead in their soup. Forty-eight have been laid to rest. The other four are in the freezer.

In an executive decision, Mother Superior Cardelia determined that a Betamax was an investment superior to four more funerals. This evening (we are the audience) is the fund-raiser that will permit the frozen four to follow the 48, preferably before the health inspector visits the kitchen again.

The one joke is soon exhausted, but not the nuns. These little sisters are infectious, contagious and undeterred. They bring remorseless zeal to riding their audience. One (Sister Robert Anne, played by Christine Anderson) is your all-purpose nun, smilingly there when you need her. One (Sister Mary Hubert, played by Sharon McNight) purses her lips a lot in nunnish indignation. One dances (Sister Mary Leo, played by Beth Bowles), the others don’t. And one (Sister Mary Amnesia, played by Semina DeLaurentis) can’t remember a thing, except to pull out from under her habit that talking puppet, Sister Mary Onette.

(Get it? Get it? Get it?)

Yes, Sister Virginia, it’s that kind of show, quite a bit brisker in execution than in concept. It reaches and reaches but doesn’t always grasp. The one-liners feel like captions more than script and both the dialogue and action rely heavily on old tricks of the trade: terminal cuteness, contagious laughter, lots of innocuous foot-in-mouth disease and a wide-ranging compendium of “habit humor.� It’s mostly clever wordplay. A typical Sister Julia, child of God, menu: Barbecued ribs St. Joan, Jim and Tammy Humble Pie, Mary Magdalene tarts. . . . You catch the shrift.

Goggin’s musical numbers range from palatable to tasty, without making any sort of lasting impression. They’re deft, in a jingle sort of way--when they can be understood which, at the Fonda on Wednesday, was not all the time. (There is no sound credit in the program.)

The same goes for Felton Smith’s musical staging and choreography which wisely remains ultra simple. Musical direction by Maggie Torre (piano), accompanied by Rick Mays (synthesizer), David Henderson (woodwinds) and Grace Milan (percussion), is at least as lively as the singing nuns.

Barry Axtell’s eclectic set is more problematic, however--part nave, part high school gym, inhabited dead center by such extraneous objects as three hair-dryers (never used) and a discarded auto seat (seldom used). One assumes they are props for the musical “Grease� that the students at St. Helen’s School are putting together, but it’s bad planning. All they do is clutter an already busy show.

Goggin would have done himself a favor by eliminating the intermission and about 30 minutes of material (mostly from the show’s first half). He also might have done himself a favor by turning “Nunsense� over to another director who might have looked at these problems more dispassionately. As it stands, “Nunsense� runs on high-octane largely thanks to its priceless cast, but it does run on too long and is fun about half the time.

Performances at 6126 Hollywood Blvd. run Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., with matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 and Sundays at 3, until May 29. Tickets: $23.50-$29.50; (213) 410-1062.