Sara, Gorgeous, and Pfeni Rosensweig are back and every bit as smart and sassy and engaging at South Coast Repertory as they were when playwright Wendy Wasserman, fresh from her Pulitzer Prize win for The Heidi Chronicles, debuted The Sisters Rosensweig back in 1992.

 A then contemporary look at three female siblings decades past their twenties (take that Olga, Masha, and Irina), Wasserman’s Outer Critics Circle Best Play Award winner has found itself transformed in the quarter-century since its Broadway premiere from cutting-edge dramedy to nostalgic but still incisive period piece set in London smack dab at the end of the Soviet Union with not a smart phone in sight.

 Twice married-and-divorced and about to turn fifty-four, Sara Rosensweig Goode (Amy Aquino) is living the glamorous expat life as a successful international banker with no intention of tying the knot thrice, or even of getting romantically involved with a man.

Meanwhile, Sara’s U.K.-raised seventeen-year-old daughter Tess (Emily James) is doing the teen rebellion thing by making plans to head off to Vilnius to join the resistance with her Lithuanian-English boyfriend Tom Valinius (Riley Neldam).

 Travel writer Pfeni (nee Penny) Rosensweig (Betsy Brandt), still unmarried at forty and freshly arrived in London for the birthday festivities, has been romantically involved for some years now with bisexual theater director Geoffrey Duncan (Bill Brochtrup), though how much longer it will be till he scratches his itch for men is anyone’s guess.

 Also visiting the U.K. is fake-Chanel-suit-sporting middle sister Gorgeous Teitelbaum (Eleanor Reissa), joyfully celebrating her newfound fame as radio psychologist “Dr. Gorgeous” (because if Dr. Pepper can have his Ph.D, then so can she).

 And then there’s Geoffrey’s American chum Mervyn Kent (Matthew Arkin). aka Merv (or Merlin by those like Gorgeous with a poor memory for names), a furrier turned “world leader in synthetic animal protective covering” whose arrival just might stoke fires in Sara she thought long extinguished.

As much an examination of Jewish identity (Gorgeous remains observant, Sara and Pfeni considerably less so) as it is of sisterhood and the struggle between feminist independence and old-fashioned romantic entanglement, The Sisters Rosensweig remains a potent, entertaining mix in 2018, and with director Casey Stangl eliciting one memorable star turn after another from an all-around superb cast, Wasserman’s intelligence and wit shine through at every step.

 Looking like a 50something Lady Di, Aquino anchors the production as the all too sensible Sara,  Reissa’s voluble Gorgeous steals scenes right and left, and Brandt is loveliness personified as Pfeni.

Arkin’s Merv commands the stage with seasoned charm, Brochtrup’s Geoffrey is simply delish, James and Neldam could not make for a more delightful pair of young lovers, and a terrifically dry Julian Sloane completes the cast as ‘‘one of those weirdo English bankers who takes sixteen-year-old models to dinner,’’ then ‘‘puts panty hose over his head and dances to Parsifal.”

 Scenic designer John Iacovelli gives Sara a London flat so expansive and sumptuous, it almost steals the show, with production designer Denitsa Bliznakova’s nostalgic ‘90s wear, Elizabeth Harper’s vibrant lighting, and Jeff Polunas’s period-perfect sound design adding up to one stunning production design, dialect coach Philip D. Thompson scoring high marks as well.

 Joshua Max Feder is assistant director. Jerry Patch is dramaturg. Joshua Marchesi is production manager. Casting is by Joanne DeNaut, CSA.

Julie Ann Renfro is stage manager and Sue Karutz is assistant stage manager.

As splendid a revival as any Wendy Wasserstein lover could possibly wish for and one that still packs a punch after twenty-six years, The Sisters Rosensweig concludes South Coast Repertory’s 2017-2018 season on a high note indeed.

South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
www.scr.org

–Steven Stanley
May 20, 2018
Photos: Debora Robinson/SCR

Tags: Orange County Theater Review, South Coast Repertory, Wendy Wasserstein