“Church Basement Ladies” finds its intended audience

Church Basement Ladies celebrates people you don’t notice but sorely miss when they’re gone. This lighthearted musical comedy, which opened June 23 at Marcus Center Vogel Hall, particularly celebrates the ladies who keep a church running. Vivian, Mavis and Karin, along with Willie, the off-stage janitor, emerge in this show from the church basement kitchen for their comic turns.

While set in Minnesota in 1964-65, the show could just as well be about the activities in a church basement kitchen of today.

The ladies of East Cornucopia Lutheran Church of the Prairie brave a blizzard to host a record-breaking Christmastime Lutefisk Dinner. They struggle to fix the furnace the night of Willie’s funeral spread, don hula skirts for the Hawaiian Easter dinner, and try to keep the cake, among other things, from melting down at a wedding in the middle of a sweltering July. Assisting the ladies is Karin’s daughter Signe, home visiting from university in the Twin Cities. The church’s Pastor Gunderson is only occasionally so helpful.

Husband-and-wife team Jessica Zuehlke and Jim Stowell based their play on Growing Up Lutheran, a book by Janet Letnes Martin and four co-authors. Zuehlke and Stowell collaborated with composer Drew Jensen to create Church Basement Ladies.

Thursday’s preview performance suffered from inconsistencies. The singing of Jenny Wanasek (Vivian), Rhonda Rae Busch (Mavis),  Kay Stiefel (Karin), Beth Mulkerron (Signe) and Norman Moses (Pastor) was in tune overall, and ensemble harmonies were good. Comic timing, however, was patchy and relied on over-the-top slapstick dance routines or long, slow stares. Dialog veered between being spoken in the actor’s normal accents and  exaggerated exclamations in Minnesotan-Norwegian of “Ja! Ja!” and “Oofda!”

Some of the show’s limitations stem from the script and the score. Zuehlke and Stowell have the actors spend too much time in certain moments and too little in others. Jansen’s music bounces along, but the composer did not seize opportunities for creativity presented in the script or exploit the possibilities of using a prerecorded soundtrack and sound effects to accompany the show. It would have been nice to hear some organ and service music filtering down from the church above, or ukuleles and slide guitars in the Hawaiian Easter scenes.

Despite these difficulties, the show seemed to find resonance with its audience on Thursday night. The hall was filled with hearty laughter at the cast’s antics throughout the show, and it closed to a loud round of applause.

This Marcus Center production of Church Basement Ladies runs through August 7. Call the Marcus Center box office, 414 273-7206, or order online.