The set for Colette Freedman's new play Sister Cities (designed by George Allison, decorated by Carolyn Mraz) is such a detailed rendering of a home — stairs to a second floor, living room, dining room, kitchen, and home office — that you might think you've entered an apartment by mistake. Freedman's play about four sisters — all named by their eccentric mother after the cities they were born in — who reunite to deal with her suicide refreshingly revives the realistic idiom. Except for a long flashback in Act 2, including a soliloquy from the dead mother, Mary (Judith Scarpone), Freedman never breaks the fourth wall. It's a terrifically hard thing to do. Instead of cinematic blackouts to end scenes, the characters must have reasons to exit and enter. Even the monologues are part of character interaction rather than nicely shaped arias to the audience.
Freedman's efforts pay off in Act 1. The interactions between the sisters, who each have different fathers, are comic and fraught. A Scrabble word challenge, settled when Carolina (Ellen Reilly), a judgmental lawyer, looks up the word on her BlackBerry, deftly demonstrates character: The obscene word choice of sassy Harvard student Baltimore (Jamie Neumann) annoys Dallas (Emberli Edwards), a prissy schoolteacher. Eventually we learn that Austin (Maeve Yore), a lesbian writer who lived with Mary, has a secret: She assisted Mary's suicide. Mom was suffering from progressive ALS and wanted to die.
Realism, however, is unforgiving. To keep the action going into Act 2, Freedman resorts to a rather silly contrivance. Her nicely written flashback adds nothing, despite effective emoting from Scarpone and Yore. The sisters accuse and confess; they fight and make up. Despite director Cat Parker's energetic staging, plot problems ultimately keep Sister Cities a surface situation dramedy instead of a compelling portrait of family, grief, and responsibility.
Presented by and at T. Schreiber Studio,
151 W. 26th St., 7th floor, NYC.
Oct. 26-Nov. 18. Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.
(212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com.