The Sisters Rosensweig (Paperback)

by Wendy Wasserstein (Author) "Late morning Friday..." (more)
Key Phrases: honey bunch, brilliant woman, New York, Aunt Pfeni, Scarlet Pimpernel (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
A Broadway hit from the early 1990s is given an excellent performance on this well-produced audio. Music and sound effects provide outstanding support for the superb professionals working before a live audience. Taking place in London at a gathering to celebrate American expatriate sister Sarah's birthday, this comedy explores family and the familiar relationships of three Jewish sisters from Brooklyn with their male companions from 1930s youth to 1990s London. It is fast paced, quite clever, and often hilarious. L.A. Theatre Works appears to have made an extraordinary commitment to bringing modern and classical theater to audio in such an effective manner. Highly recommended.ACliff Glaviano, Bowling Green State Univ. Libs., OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review
"The humor will sneak up on you and occasionally make you laugh out loud." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 84 pages
• Publisher: Dramatist's Play Service (October 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822213486
• ISBN-13: 978-0822213482
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #811,263 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #10 in

  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( W ) > Wasserstein, Wendy

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Wasserstein continues to delight, August 10, 2000

By	Lauren Bonner (Memphis, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sisters Rosensweig (Paperback)

Reading a play by Wendy Wasserstien is always a delight, but even though all of her writings are to be savored, The Sisters Rosensweig exhibits an important mark in the author's maturing style. In spite of this maturation, however, the story line never grows stale and Ms. Wasserstein never fails to draw from her reader a smile and a laugh, and give to give us a refreshed sense of the type of person we want to be--it's self-help through fiction!

The Sisters Rosensweig follows the reunion of three Jewish sisters who come together for a visit in Queen Anne's Gate, London, and the joys and struggles they share concerning romance, careers, childhood, and family--joys and struggles with which we all identify, not only as women but as human beings. Thank you, Ms. Wasserstien, for another delightful treat!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sweet Family Union , November 11, 2004

By	Aco - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sisters Rosensweig (Paperback)

The Sisters Rosensweig is a terrific, sweet and very humane play about a gathering of people, in particular three Jewish American sisters in London in 1991. Each of the sisters is stuck in some way, trapped by time in their mid-lives. They are joined at oldest sister Sara's London home by Sara's daughter, and several male suitors/friends.

Throughout Wasserstein keeps the tone light and the wit cracking. Everyone of these characters is intelligent and visible, knows the world yet remains perplexed by their own lives.

To me this is the type of affirming family bound play that warms, and though life remains elusive in many ways, the sisters know they have each other and use that love and charity to sweet degrees.

Recommended, smart and funny.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "There are real possibilities in life, even for leftover meat and cabbage.", March 14, 2009

By	Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: The Sisters Rosensweig (Paperback)

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 of the sisters 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

The Heidi Chronicles: Uncommon Women and Others & Isn't It Romantic, texts
Uncommon Women and Others (Broadway Theatre Archive), DVD
Charlie Rose with Wendy Wasserstein (October 10, 1995), DVD
Seven One-Act Plays, texts
An American Daughter, text