BEHIND THE CONVENT WALLS

    A powerful TV series reveals the secret lives of the Brides of Christ

    Story by Jennifer Gilbert
    WOMANS DAY MAGAZINE Australia 3 September 1991



    THE BRIDE makes her way surely up the aisle, a radiant vision in white lace, to pledge her life to the man she loves. But there is no groom waiting eagerly for her at the altar...

    As recently as 20 years ago, nuns were admitted to the convent - with its rigid life of poverty, chastity and obedience - after a ceremonial "white wedding", to become brides of Christ. It was one of many rituals which have created an enduring aura of mystery about what really happens behind convent walls. Now former convent schoolgirl and leading television producer Penny Chapman wants to dispel the image of nuns as unearthly, asexual creatures who closet themselves away from society. In fact, she says, nuns have been responsible for moulding some of Australia's most successful women.

    Since graduating from a top Sydney Catholic girls' school in the late 1960s, Penny has wanted to tell the "real" story of the nuns. Her ambition has been fulfilled with a spectacular six-hour mini-series, Brides of Christ (to be screened on ABCTV on Wednesday and Thursday nights for three successive weeks, from September 4).

    "It's fascinating that women like (academic and feminist writer) Germaine Greer and (former Federal Education Minister) Susan Ryan have credited the nuns as being the most formative influences in their lives," Penny explains. "I have always been struck by the contradiction - that an institution so authoritarian as the convent, based on the notion of obedience, could turn out so many interesting, outspoken, independent women. In their own subtle way, the nuns were early feminists and quite political, which is what I wanted the series to reflect.

    "For Australian girls, before the women's liberation movement, the nuns presented one of few alternative role models to being wives and mothers. Here were women running their own lives, genuinely excited and inspired by what they were doing," she says. "So I decided to make a series about those women and the girls they taught - but set in the '60s, when the Church and Western society went through radical change.

    "Also everybody has a story of their own youth within them, and this was mine. It will be a nostalgia trip for those of us educated by the nuns and other Catholics, as well as a fascinating journey of discovery for those who weren't - for those who have ever wondered what went on behind convent walls."

    Brides of Christ, a co-production of ABC-TV and Roadshow Coote & Carroll, boasts an impressive cast, headed by Josephine Byrnes, Sandy Gore, Lisa Hensley, Naomi Watts, Kym Wilson, Philip Quast and Irish actress Brenda Fricker, who won an Oscar for her performance in My Left Foot.

    Set in the fictitious convent school of Santo Spirito, it shows nuns as highly spirited, questioning women, with sexual feelings and very human failings. While committed to God and good, they are not portrayed as saints. Brides of Christ shows how the upheavals of the '60s pitted new against old - causing trauma and friction in the sisterhood.

    "The actresses all locked into their characters and became totally immersed in them, whether they were familiar with Catholicism or not," Penny says.

    For all its restrictions, Penny - now head of ABC-TV drama - reveled in her convent schooldays.

    "It was a rich if tough life, ruled by silences and bells. I've gained so much from it. The nuns encouraged me to think about and question the choices I make and to arrange my life so as to most effectively use my talents and time. I don't think that training ever really leaves you."


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