THE STORY: Sara Goode, an enormously successful American woman working as the British representative of a major Hong Kong bank, is about to celebrate her fifty-fourth birthday, and she isn’t exactly too happy about it. Firmly ensconced in her lovely London home, she leads a quiet, almost cold, expatriate life with her daughter, Tess. For the birthday celebration, her two sisters, Gorgeous Teitelbaum (Dr. Gorgeous, loving housewife and mother, of Newton, MA, who has her own call-in radio advice program and hopes to make the leap to TV), and Pfeni Rosensweig (peripatetic third-world travel writer, alas, unmarried), are expected to arrive at any moment. As if this weren’t causing Sara enough stress, Mervyn Kant shows up at her door, and she doesn’t even know the man, who, at first sight, is instantly smitten with her. Mervyn is a furrier, and a friend of Geoffrey’s, the on-again, off-again, bi-sexual lover of Pfeni. After her sisters arrive for the celebration, Tess, and her boyfriend, Tom, turn up and advise her that they’re planning on rushing off to his ancestral Lithuania for reasons of political protest. Next to arrive is Nicholas, the stuffy Brit whom Sara has been “seeing” although he seems somewhat anti-Semitic. All of this adds up to a rather interesting evening, which leads to unexpected romance, suspected partings, recriminations, reconciliations and, above all, newfound love and acceptance.
Winner of the 1993 Outer Critics Circle award for Best Broadway Play.
A captivating portrait of three disparate sisters reuniting after a lengthy separation and coming to terms with their differences, respect and love for one another.
“The laughter is all but continuous.” —The New Yorker.
“Funny. Observant. A play with wit as well as acumen…In dealing with social and cultural paradoxes, Ms. Wasserstein is, as always, the most astute of commentators.” —The New York Times.
“This is a simply lovely, funny play, and such family values benefit from small revelations.” —New York Post.
