A reunion of the three Rosensweig sisters for the fifty-fourth birthday celebration of oldest sister Sara Goode, provides feminist author Wendy Wasserstein the opportunity to explore the role of women in society, their opportunities for success, their roles as Jews, and their searches for identity, all trademark themes for Wasserstein. In this play, however, the characters are much quirkier than usual, offering Wasserstein more opportunities for pointed, and sometimes poignant, humor than one finds in some of her other plays. All three Rosensweigs, having grown up in Brooklyn, have now moved on to other parts of the world, individually accepting what they want from their heritage while rejecting the rest.
Sara, a highly successful banker, lives with her daughter Tess in Queen Anne's Gate, London. Married and divorced twice, Sara is no longer interested in marriage, nor does she believe that she will ever return "home." The middle sister, "Gorgeous" Teitelbaum, lives in the Boston suburbs and has an advice program on Boston radio, where she is "Doctor Gorgeous." The youngest, Pfeni Rosensweig, age forty and never married, wanders the world as a journalist and is working on a study of the women of Tajikistan. None are truly happy, though all are reasonably content. During the weekend with Sara, their relationships with each other and with the men in their lives unfold, creating tensions and crises for all. Sara's daughter Tess, about to begin college, acts as a young foil for the opinions of the older generation and puts many of their issues into a more modern perspective.
Wasserstein's ear for dialogue allows her to convey information naturally through conversations and interactions, and the scenes between Pfeni and her bisexual lover Geoffrey, a flamboyant theatre director, are hilarious, as she offers him grounding, while he gives excitement to her time away from her travels. Geoffrey's friend, Merv Kant, a furrier--and highly unlikely suitor for Sara--proves to be a kindly man who is not intimidated by Sara, though she rejects him outright. Their scenes provide the meat-and-cabbage of the thematic development as they examine their Jewish backgrounds, their feelings, and their individual hopes, if any. Gorgeous, happily married, has secret worries of her own, even as she offers advice to young Tess, who plans to go to newly liberated Lithuania with her boyfriend.
Though Wasserstein's themes are impossible to miss, this play is funnier (and less strident) than some of her other plays, and while the characters are generally stereotypes, they are quirky enough here to inspire audience sympathy, even as their absurdity becomes obvious. Written in 1992 and hugely successful on Broadway, The Sisters Rosensweig won the Outer Critics Circle Award in 1993. n Mary Whipple
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