Wendy Wasserstein spotlights some fairly conventional themes in her 1993 play, “The Sisters Rosensweig.” Love, fear of love, loneliness, and the art of navigating life in a quickly changing world — they’ve all been swirled around in the gold pan in search of choice nuggets countless times before.
In her tale of three adult sisters who gather for a weekend in the London home of the eldest, Wasserstein offers no revolutionary insights on those themes. Yet, she manages to tell a story that glitters with great wit, honesty and warmth, creating characters who are impossible not to love in spite of their sometimes considerable shortcomings.
TheatreWorks’ staging of “The Sisters Rosensweig” for the most part does justice to those quirky, complex sisters and the others who converge on the Queen Anne’s Gate household for a birthday celebration. Directed by Robert Kelley, the play gets off to a tentative start, but picks up in pace and conviction as the story develops.
Eldest sister Sara is celebrating her 54th birthday with plans to cook a cassoulet feast for her daughter, a safely distant male friend and her two sisters, who are arriving from their own corners of the world. An international banker, she is the divorced mother of Tess, and a woman who is happy to have fled the circumstances of her middle-class Jewish upbringing as a product of Brooklyn.
But she’s not really happy. She’s lonely, anxious about her daughter and, as others keep reminding her, “cold and bitter.” Once an enthusiastic member of her college’s choral group, she has forgotten the joy of singing.
Enter youngest sister Pfeni, who has fled from her circumstances by wandering the world as a travel writer, and sister Gorgeous, a flamboyant, class-conscious radio personality who, unlike her sisters, has embraced the world she was born into.
Thus the stage is set for an exploration into each woman’s choice of her own path in life, though the two younger sisters’ stories are given far less scrutiny than that of Sara’s.
On the whole, Wasserstein’s depiction of the sisters veers away from caricature just as it seems she is indulging in it — breaking through stereotypes and revealing all-too-human characters who demand our respect and sympathy.
Alison Edwards is a hard-edged but ultimately vulnerable Sara. She and Carole Healey, who plays Gorgeous, have a masterful sense of timing that moves the action along and at times makes for some very funny moments.
Rebecca Dines’ Pfeni seems like a character in search of her center. Whereas Ms. Edwards and Ms. Healey have complete control over their movements, commanding a strong presence on the stage, Ms. Dines’ movements at times seem confused, and are too often distracting. Her quickly changing facial expressions and perpetual motion made me feel as if I were listening to a jazz player who, when improvising, crams too many notes into his solo — so many that the individual notes lose their meaning.
Jeff Williams as the flamboyant and manic theater director Geoffrey, and Michael G. Hawkins as Mervyn, who wanders into Sara’s life as an insistent force for change, are outstanding.
Mr. Williams is not a small man, but when he performs a dance sequence to a Motown tune, and travels across the stage in fanciful movement, he seems weightless as a breeze and is a marvel to behold.
Mr. Hawkins successfully blends chutzpah, sweetness and strength into a believable and sympathetic character.
The set by Joe Ragey is both elegant and warm, and Cathleen Edwards deserves applause for Gorgeous’ glamorous get-ups and other smart costume choices.
TheatreWorks dedicated the production of “The Sisters Rosensweig” to the memory of the playwright, who died in January at the age of 55. It is a worthy tribute.
INFORMATION
“The Sisters Rosensweig,” written by Wendy Wasserstein and staged by TheatreWorks, runs through April 30 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St. in Mountain View. For tickets or information, call 903-6000 or log on at theatreworks.org.
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