Members of Dominican Sister Nancy Murray's nine-sibling Catholic family, including actor-brother Bill Murray, felt sure she'd be sent home from the convent during her postulancy because she talked too much.
The gregarious nature of this former high school drama teacher and Chicago inner-city pastoral associate/liturgical music rapper has stood Sister Murray in good stead over the years and has proven to be quite an asset in her current full-time ministry: portraying St. Catherine of Siena to audiences around the world.
Interviewed by phone at her order's motherhouse in Adrian, Mich., before starting her January tour --- which will include a performance at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Los Angeles Jan. 21 --- Sister Murray said she considers her one-woman show "a new form of preaching" that introduces an "independent, feisty" Catherine to audiences largely unfamiliar with the saint's history.
"People only know Catherine's final accomplishments," said Sister Murray. One of the most influential women in the 14th century (and credited with ending the 74-year-long papal "captivity" in Avignon, France, by persuading the pope to return to Rome), Catherine began life as the 24th child in a hard-working Italian family whose members took umbrage at Catherine's refusal to either marry young or enter a cloistered convent.
Growing up, Catherine was attracted to the charitable acts of the Mantellata, mostly older female widows who wore a black mantle over a Third Order Dominican white tunic as they served the poor in the streets of Siena at a time "when no other women were allowed on the streets," explained Sister Murray.
Catherine's parents were flummoxed when their daughter said she wanted to join the Mantellata, and they insisted she serve the family as a household servant for three years before giving their permission for Catherine to follow the lay women of the parish.
Undeterred by the work and buoyed by her mystical prayer life, the illiterate Catherine finally convinced her family, and parish priests, to let her to live with the Mantellata. From age 21 until her death at age 33 in 1380, she nursed the sick in the local hospitals, visited prisoners, helped the poor and inspired people from all walks of life as a lay Dominican.
During her short lifetime, she dictated hundreds of letters to people who sought her spiritual guidance, including Pope Urban. A collection of her prayers and conversations with God called "The Dialogue" is considered a spiritual classic.
"She never imposed her lifestyle. People just wanted to be around her. Even men joined the Mantellata," said Sister Murray. "There's a lot of personality [revealed] in the translations of Catherine's letters. She was strong but also had gentleness, kindness and a sense of humor."
Sister Murray, who portrays 14 different Italian-accented characters in the hour-and-a-half show, says audiences come away with an appreciation of St. Catherine's human struggles and accomplishments. "Many feel proud and connected to a church in struggling times," she says.
"I never thought [the show] would last this long," admits Sister Murray, who has given over 300 performances since October 2005 to schools, parishes and hospitals in the U.S. and around the world. She already has 33 bookings in 13 states for the first six months of 2007.
Though her brothers, Brian and Bill, have achieved acting and screenwriting success in television and films, Sister Murray likes to teasingly remind them she is the one with the theatre degree. A theatre graduate from Barry University in Miami, Fla., Sister Murray performed the singing/acting role of Fruma Sarah in "Fiddler on the Roof," as well as the part of Margot in "The Diary of Anne Frank."
Following graduation, she returned to her high school alma mater, Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, Ill., and taught drama, dance and theology for nearly a decade. When brother Bill was performing at Chicago's famed Second City comedy club, she asked him to drop in at the high school to perform a song from the musical, "Oliver," which she was producing.
"I was Billy's first director," laughs Sister Murray. Two-and-a-half years older than Bill, the third child and first daughter of the Murray clan of three girls and six boys, she cast Bill as "Joseph" to her "Mary" in one of the many shows the children performed for their parents. Always a close-knit family, the siblings gathered together the night Bill was up for an Academy Award in 2003 for his role in the film, "Lost in Translation." He lost, but "we had a great party anyway," said Sister Murray.
To reserve tickets to Sister Murray's performance at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westwood (Jan. 21, 7 p.m.), call (310) 474-1527 x 285. Admission: $10, adults; $5 children. For information on her Jan. 20 performance at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Irvine, call (949) 854-1000. |