Into the habit with Kimberly King

July 16, 10:07 AMSF Theater ExaminerChad Jones

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Former Bay Area actress Kimberly King is back among us in the role of Sister Aloysius, a scary nun in John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “Doubt,” a TheatreWorks production at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto.

King (seen at right, with Kristin Stokes, photo by David Allen) , who was in more than 25 shows at Berkeley Repertory Theatre to name just a few of her local credits, says that rehearsals have been that much easier when she’s allowed to wear Sister A’s habit, which is not the traditional veil and wimple. Sister A is part of the Sisters of Charity, founded in the early 1800s by Mother Seton.

“These habits look like they stopped evolving around 1840,” King says during a rehearsal break. “There’s a bonnet, a shawl, a surplice and gown. A very interesting silhouette. All these very 20th-century ideas and words and conflicts coming out of the minds and bodies of very 18th-century people.”

With her pinched face and spectacles, Sister Aloysius is not a glamour nun like Maria in “The Sound of Music” or Sister Bertrille in “The Flying Nun.”

“I think my Equity card would be withdrawn if I had to wear lipstick for this play,” King says. “I’d be bounced right out of the theater on that one. One of the younger sisters in the play mentions that she loved the Christmas pageant last year, and Sister A says, `I didn’t love it. The girl playing Our Lady was wearing lipstick!’”

As terrifying as she can be, Sister Aloysius can also be funny, which is surprising in such an intense drama involving possible child sexual abuse by a priest.

“The fact that the sister is so strict about penmanship and ballpoint pens and lipstick renders a lot of humor,” King says. “She’s got some very strong ideas about how children should be educated. That is at once frightening and powerful.”

King and her actor husband, Ken Grantham, now run a guest house/bed and breakfast in Washington’s Puget Sound. But they continue acting as well. And they’ve discovered how to audition via YouTube.

“I submitted my audition for `Doubt’ on YouTube, which is an extraordinary thing for actors,” King says. “You can live almost anywhere. We made the video and had it posted to the director’s computer in a matter of second. It’s never as being there in person, but it’s certainly an option. Like Sister Aloysius in 1964 at the time of Vatican II, I’ve been drop kicked into the new millennium.”

For more with Kimberly King, visit my TheaterDogs.net site here.