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Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Sisters Rosensweig” Comes
to the Old Globe
By Debra Kamin
When Wendy Wasserstein died January 30 at the age of 55, America lost
one of most prolific and influential playwrights. Famous for her wry wit,
the Tony and Pulitzer-winning Wasserstein was perhaps best known for the
strong Jewish female roles she so brilliantly crafted. In their obituary,
the New York Times described her as a “chronicler of women’s
identity crises.”
Wasserstein’s voice will live on at the Old Globe this summer, when
“The Sisters Rosensweig” opens on July 15. We chatted with
director David Warren, executive director Lou Spisto, and actress Deirdre
Lovejoy (who will appear as Pfeni) about “Sisters” and its
acclaimed playwright.
David Warren
SDJJ: What attracted you to this project?
DW: Well, obviously the play. It’s a play that
I remembered liking very much and upon re-reading fell in love with again.
I also knew Wendy pretty well and so I had been, and continued to, miss
her and to be mourning her…I loved the idea of getting to kind of
serve her memory by revisiting one of her plays and in fact my favorite
of her plays.
SDJJ: Would you describe “Sisters” as a Jewish play?
DW: You know, that’s such a tricky question. It’s
certainly a lay bout Jewish people. And it’s certainly a play- Wendy
always wrote in her distinct voice which was, is the voice of a very funny
Jewish woman. So I think in those ways it’s Jewish play. I also
think it’s a kind of universal play, its a very human play. I think
it’s about kind of reconnecting with who you are.
SDJJ: How would you define Wasserstein’s legacy in the American
theater?
DW: I would say she’s one of the most important
playwrights. Not just Jewish…I think Wendy’s is one of the
great voices in the American theater. And I think one of her gifts was,
and is, that her plays are so entertaining. And I think because they’re
so entertaining and they’re so much fun to see, It’s sort
of easy to underestimate her a little bit, and to just sort of consider
her a fun playwright. And although I think she was very much a fun playwright,
she was also a very powerful observer of the human condition. And I think
the “Sisters R” is hilarious, but I think it’s also
truly Chekhovian.
Lou Spisto
SDJJ: Wendy Wasserstein was always a darling of the Jewish intellectual
set because she was so prolific and so successful. Do you consider her
work to be “Jewish works?”
LS: I think her work reflected the fact that she was a person
living in this country at this time who is a woman and is Jewish-American
and all of that informed her work. Everything about her was clear and
evident in all of her work. You could see her take on life, and particularly
in “Sisters,” which is about three Jewish-American sisters
who are upper-middle class and intellectual and living what we might consider
go to be the “good life,” but still facing important and difficult
mid-life issues.
SDJJ: Who do you think is the target audience for this play?
LS: Everyone who enjoys great theater. It’s a very funny
play. Wendy had the ability to be funny and candid and honest and very
true to the subject mater, while illuminating a condition. Life’s
condition. The condition of the human spirit.
SDJJ: Why do you think people should come and see this show?
LS: I think people will see themselves in these roles, there’s something
about all of us in these women, that reflects all of us in these women.
And it’s a really good time.
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Deirdre Lovejoy
SDJJ: Do you do a good deal of research before you go into rehearsal
to settle your character or do you start research with rehearsals?
DL: Well it is interesting because I’m not Jewish. But
on Broadway I did a play that ran for a very, very short time called “The
Gathering” and I played a woman who had converted to Judaism, so
I did a good deal of research for that and so, in terms of this play –
“The SR” is about the relationships between the sisters and
them sort of finding their way mid-life and it’s about rebirth and
hope and how we lose that and gain it again along the way. That’s
really the heart of the story. So yes, I usually do research but in this
case, it’s about getting in the room and creating relationships
with the actual actors and the piece.
SDJJ: Is this your first Wendy Wasserstein production?
DL: It is. I actually knew Wendy and met her several times, socially,
because I did theater in NY for so many years…I think it’s
a lovely opportunity to honor her and her work and her contribution because
she had a very unique voice and she wrote beautiful things about women.
And that is very, very rare. You don’t find plays about—about
women. Especially that can be, just from the outside, seen as a sort of
slice of life. I mean “The Heidi Chronicles” certainly is
a more complex piece in terms of the examination of one woman’s
life. But there is a lot of depth that is very deftly laid in and there’s
great meaning. And I mean that in the sense of, in this case, family and
what we take into the world with us is incredibly interesting and complex,
and not something we look at everyday. And she illuminates that quite
brilliantly, I think.
SDJJ: It sounds like you’re a WW fan.
DL: I remember seeing Chrisine Laudi in “The Heidi Chronicles”
on Broadway way back when. And thinking “Wow. What a great role.”
And in acting class, when I was in acting school – I went to NYU
graduate school and I went to the University of Evansville in Evansville,
Indiana – I’m a Midwestern girl. When the young women actors
were looking for scenes, you couldn’t go three feet without bumping
into “Uncommon Women” and “Others.” Every girl
that’s ever been to acting school has performed a scene from “Uncommon
Women.” Because there wasn’t anything else out there. I mean
Meryl Streep originated a role in that production – I think that’s
the one that put her on the map. So in terms of her influence over material
written for women, you can’t measure it. She was one of the first
ones that was sort of on the map and credible and, I believe, “Heidi
Chronicles” won a Pulitzer, didn’t it? She was really kind
of the first woman of my generation to give a voice to my generation.
SDJJ: Do you take it as more of a gift to be able to bring this
to life, to personify these characters, after with all this having happened
in the interim?
DL: Of course, but I wouldn’t want that that intimate that
“oh isn’t that lucky.” I think that the American theater
lost a very strong voice so it’s an honor to be able to do this
play.
For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.
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