Sisters: a charming adaptation of a grim tragedy
31 Aug 2018

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

That's tempo. Like the organ grinder told me, it's the sound of time being measured. Like a heartbeat.

The sisters in Sisters share a small sewing and preserves shop with a single bed. The sisters in Soulpepper's Sisters share a square box centrestage that is a cross between a cage and a cuckoo clock. The clock ticks relentlessly as the sisters' tragic fates move ever forward. Ann, a prim repressed Laura Condlin (Fun Home, An Enemy of the People, Sextet), believes in the sanctity of their home and business, at least until she meets the clockmaker Mr Ramy (Kevin Bundy). Suddenly there is a possibility of romance and life beyond the squalid street they are trapped in.   

But the other sister Evelina, a feisty and exuberant Nicole Power (The Importance of Being Earnest), also meets Mr Ramy and actively dreams of escaping their current situation. Despite Ann's best efforts, and Evelina's dexterity with fine sewing, her life is already, to her, one long, boring tragedy. Though Mr Ramy has his eye on Ann, she goes full-on Mildred Pierce, and sacrifices all for her sister. And as this is a tragedy instead of a romance, Mr Ramy is not the savior of either sister and it becomes very grim for all.

For all except for the upstairs dressmaker/hypochondriac Mrs Mellins. Karen Robinson (Bang Bang, Prince Hamlet, Schitt's Creek) applies her considerable comic chops to conjure a woman salaciously obsessed with conspiracy theories, sordid crimes and other prurient horrors. She is hilarious and waltzes away with every scene she is in. When Mrs Mellins is the only character with an even vaguely happy ending, she is forgiven for having brightened the proceedings and done much to keep what could have been a depressing kitchen sink drama effervescent.

The performances and interactions are impeccable, and director Peter Pasyk (The Circle, Late Company) and set designer Michelle Tracey keep the action moving with, pun intended, clockwork precision. Transitions in time and space are achieved with a naturalistic balletic grace (and a sliding cuckoo clock door), while the space outside the cage is used as a similar containment. It is a clever riff on black box design with an additional metaphorical heft. When Evelina runs circles around the stage it is a horrific representation of the endless loop a cuckoo clock figure travels. All of these characters are trapped. 

I am not familiar with the Edith Wharton source material but Rosamund Small's adaptation is light, witty and narrowly escapes camp as the tribulations begin to escalate. I can only speculate that the final moments are an addition to Wharton's tale, a brief ray of hope and plucky opposition to the climactic downward trajectory. By the time the curtain arrives, we care too much about Condlin's Ann to accept her complete annihilation. 

With great subtlety, Sisters gives a glimpse into life towards the end of the 19th century. Of when the world was changing in mysterious ways. When a trip to Central Park or the symphony (a particularly magical scene) was an extraordinary adventure. When a woman's lot in life was precarious at best, marriage as a transaction was the only hope. The echoes resonate because they are so quietly presented: Mrs Mellins is an enthusiastic consumer of fake news and the opioid crisis is as underground and hidden as any possibility of sexuality. This production of Sisters is able to keep the tragedy light and entertaining but that just makes the contemporary, continuing, tragedy that much more devastating.