Profile stages 'artful, sensitive' Rosensweig
By Paul Haist
There is one loose end left hanging in Wendy Wasserstein's play "The Sisters Rosensweig," on stage now through April 22 at Portland's Profile Theatre.
Early in the story, Sara Goode (nee Rosensweig), the eldest of the three sisters, orders another character to extinguish the Shabbat candles that had just been lit by the middle sister, Gorgeous Teitelbaum.
That harsh rejection of Jewish life and tradition remains mostly unresolved by the play's cozy closing scene in which the formerly somewhat estranged sisters snuggle in familial love on the sofa, at long last all Rosensweigs again and happy in what they share at that moment.
Maybe the playwright thought the issue was fully resolved or at least sufficiently resolved by the reunification in the final scene, but for at least some Jews among the audience, the rash act of extinguishing the light of Shabbat is so shocking that they are likely to want a clearer resolution than Wasserstein provided.
Non-Jews in the audience may not understand the symbolism of the act, as they also might miss several other Jewish nuances—subtle and not so subtle—in the story.
But for Jews, this play remains a rich examination of the struggle to hang on to Jewish values in a secular or largely non-Jewish world, while sharing in the universal search for meaning and happiness in life.
As presented by Profile Theatre, which has dedicated this entire season to the work of the late Wasserstein, "The Sister's Rosensweig" is simultaneously thought-provoking and very funny—completely engaging at every moment.
Each of the players brings considerable poise and wit to their role, although some of their timing on opening night might have been a little tighter. Karla Mason as Gorgeous deserves credit for thinking on her feet when one of the Shabbat candles resisted her match and she ad-libbed an "oy veh" passable to all but fluent Brooklyn Yiddishists.
There are age issues in the casting of some of the players. Notably, Amanda Soden as Pfeni Rosenberg seems rather younger than her character's middle years. Barbara Kerr as Sara is just a bit older than her character's age. Greg Alexander as Nicholas Pym is rather younger than he needs to be to play Sara's initial main squeeze, although he does so with a convincing presentation of British upper-class aloofness and, perhaps, arrogance or smugness.
Still, by halfway through the first act, each player's command of their role has erased any difficulty the audience might have had over the age issues, and Wasserstein's rich story and clever dialogue coupled with Jane Unger's sensitive direction have taken over.
Wasserstein balances moments of freighted comment (Life is random and there is no use for a just and loving God. Are we [Jews] always a people who only will watch? Love is love; gender is merely spare parts.) against scenes of high comedy.
Among the latter, actor Leif Norby's dance in boxer shorts is almost show-stopping. Likewise, Shelly Lipkin, as Sara's newfound Jewish romantic interest Mervyn Kant, is a master of impeccable timing and subtly nuanced humor in the author's use of him as a messenger of gentle but inescapable reproof to Sara for her armor of Jewish apostasy.
The Rosensweig sisters seem to discover in the unfolding of Wasserstein's story that happiness comes only in the briefest moments.
Maybe so. But Profile Theatre Direct Jane Unger has offered up an artful and sensitive staging of this comic drama that stretches this moment of happiness for her audience to two still too brief hours in the dark of the theater.