Sisters' Dance

photo: Erica Parise

Since the plot isn't anything new (sisters reunite on the ocassion of their mother's death to settle their differences and divvy up the property) and the characters are dangerously close to stock (the uptight "good" sister who stayed behind to nurse Mom and the sexual "bad" sister who didn't, for the most prominent examples) a whole lot depends on the actors to bring Sarah Hollister's amiable but derivative play to naturalistic life. But unfortunately the actors seem to have been steered in the wrong direction toward exaggeration: when the bad sister's no-good stud shows up drunk in the middle of the night, for instance, he's only a couple of pelvic thrusts away from turning into a Beetlejuice-like lech. "Good" sister walks around in what looks like a granny dress with her hair in a bun (the play's most wince-worthy cliche is the moment when she lets it down): this kind of obviousness is at odds with the play's tender slice-of-life moments.