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A mystery, a quiz on the Catholic Christmas story and a bunch of unsuspecting audience members who make up one of the most motley looking nativity scenes you’ll ever see are all part of the non-stop laugh fest that is Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold playing at Long Wharf’s Stage II.

Nonie Newton-Breen, who starred as Sister in last summer’s Late Night Catechism at Long Wharf, reprises the role in this holiday sequel penned by "Late Night" creator Maripat Donovan, with Jane Morris and Marc Silvia. In "Christmas Catechism," we visit with Sister in her classroom, where wrapped gifts are piled on her desk. They’re all different size Whitman samplers, she tells us, because no one knows what to give nun for Christmas. A few reject ideas are shared: “My Sin” perfume and a toy gun that fires nun-shaped bullets called a “nun chucker.”

The fun, which includes with Christmas carols led by music director Mathew Wrather on the keyboard, continues as Sister gives some of the gifts to various audience members who answer her quiz questions correctly. Newton-Breen’s gift for improvisation finds added humor in some of the responses, or in what audience members are wearing or doing. One woman incurred Sister’s wrath for answering “prostitute” instead of “virgin” when asked a question about Mary. Two women in the front row were frequent targets for “drinking so early in the day” and a guy named “Griz” took a lot of grief for his name and size. One audience member won praise for her name: Regina Theresa, with a confirmation name of Ann.

“A Catholic trifecta!” Sister exclaimed.

The second act deals with a mystery Sister has always wanted to solve about what happened to the gold brought to Jesus by the three magi, whom she refuses to call wise men, saying that going to Herod and asking where they could find the new king wasn’t exactly wise. To solve this centuries old mystery, Sister relies on the knowledge of forensics that she's gotten from television. She recreates the crime scene so she can collect evidence. Audience members, dressed in bathrobes, shower curtains, tablecloths and runners and other paraphernalia commonly used as costumes in children’s church pageants, become participants in a living nativity scene. The sheep, hands covered with black socks and clad in a fleece created with a white bath mat on her back, a matching toilet seat cover on her head and binder clips for ears and tail brought down the house.

More fun ensues as the participants try to act out their parts as Sister reads the nativity story and solves the mystery of the missing gold. It’s fun like “nun other” and you even have a chance to help out some real nuns if you’d like as Newton-Breen takes a post-show collection in the lobby to aid the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Bridgeport, CT.

---- Lauren Yarger

Sister’s Christmas Catechism: The Mystery of the Magi’s Gold plays at Long Wharf Theatre Stage II (222 Sargent Drive, New Haven, CT) through Dec. 21. Performances are Tuesdays at 7 pm, Wednesdays at 2 and 7 pm, Thursdays and Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 to $25 and are available by calling 203-787-4282 or online at www.longwharf.org.