Publication Date: Friday Sep 12, 1997

Love among sisters

Definitely call it a comedy. Even call it a good comedy. Certainly the opening night audience at the Palo Alto Players' production of Wendy Wasserstein's "The Sisters Rosensweig" seemed to think so. They laughed their way through the evening. And for good reason: The play is witty, bright, and the strong cast is gifted with two particularly funny male leads. Brian Leonard as Mervyn Kent, the furrier turned politically correct "manufacturer of imitation animal coverings," and Steven Cortopassi as Geoffrey Duncan, an outrageously flamboyant bi-sexual theatrical producer, have roles that come close to taking the show away from the three talented actresses who play the sisters themselves.

There's enough fun in the evening to make it a bit startling to learn that Wasserstein herself didn't have a comedy in mind when she wrote the play. She says in an essay that she saw it as "my most serious effort" and sat through the play's first preview in 1992 "in a semi-state of shock" as the audience went from chuckles to convulsive laughter.

"This is, in fact, a political act," according to Wasserstein. Maybe so. For anyone who bothers to go that route, there certainly is sub-text aplenty about Jewish identity, assimilation and the human need for love. But the wit and the general goodwill with which the ideas are cloaked, as well as the undeniable affection of the characters for each other, makes the play a remarkably benign kind of polemic--if polemic it be. Besides, the "politics" she's talking about is the relatively inoffensive issue of ageism.

For Wasserstein, "It was important to me to write a play about these uncommon women who are not 23. It was important to write a romance about Sara, a 54-year-old woman, and about Merv, a man of 58 who falls in love with a woman that age, for real."

And a very nice romance it is, too. Sara Goode (Murphy Larson), a sleek, successful, twice-divorced international banker, has let go of both her American and her Jewish roots, and lives in London with her teen-age daughter, Tess (Rachel Brown). Her sisters, Gorgeous Teitelbaum (Jennifer York) and Pfeni Rosensweig, at 40, the youngest of the three, have come to celebrate her 54th birthday.

Pfeni (Tiffany Hoover), an almost totally rootless travel writer, is romantically involved with the engaging bisexual, Geoffrey, who plans to give up men for her sake. This improbable pair is one of the delights of the evening, engaging in some of the most dazzling of Wasserstein's verbal gymnastics.

At the opposite end of the family spectrum is Gorgeous, a happily married Jewish matron and mother, active in her synagogue, somewhat religiously observant, and busily establishing herself as an advice-giving talk-show hostess.

Merve Kent, a kind and witty widower in Europe with the American Jewish Congress, sets out on what would appear to be the hopeless pursuit of the closed-down Sara. She, in turn, is engaged in her own wrong-headed romance with a Brit, Nicholas Pym (Mark Rawlins).

In the background, Sara's super-educated daughter Tess is showing the same kind of judgment about men that her mother, and at least one of her aunts, demonstrates. Tess is determined to run off to Lithuania with her boyfriend, Tom Valiunus (Nikola Loteff), he of the green hair and outrageous working-class Brit accent.

It's a talented cast with a lot of funny material to work with. Perhaps in spite of herself, Wasserstein's talent with words and general niceness takes precedence over whatever message she may have thought she was giving. It's not a bad exchange.

What:"The Sisters Rosensweig," written by Wendy Wasserstein, directed by Linda Piccone

Where:The Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto

When: Sept. 6-21; Wed.-Sun. at 8 p.m.; Sunday matinees, Sept. 7 and Sept. 21 at 2:30 p.m.

Cost: $17-$19; $2 senior and student discount for Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday performances

Information: 329-0891 

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