A Study Guide for Wendy Wasserstein's "The Sisters Rosensweig"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Wendy Wasserstein's "The Sisters Rosensweig," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama For Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama For Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Aug 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535839563

Book preview

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The Sisters Rosensweig

Wendy Wasserstein

1993

Introduction

The Sisters Rosensweig, Wendy Wasserstein's play about the transformative power of love, of sisterhood, and of life, was directed by Daniel Sullivan at Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York City, opening in October 1992. Currently available in print, it was published in 1992 by the Dramatists Play Service in New York. The play is held together by the richly woven dialogue of three Jewish-American sisters pushing against the boundaries of their own lives in order to define themselves. Consequently, they do come to a point of resolution in their struggles, sometimes raising their voices in protest to be heard, at other times speaking softly in an attempt to hear themselves. Despite the absence of any action, the sisters manage to transform both themselves and their lives in the course of one evening. Another significant feature of the work is its ability to capture and make real several social and political issues that gave shape to the late part of the 1980s—the fall of the Soviet Union, Reaganomics, and the plight of the homeless, to name a few. In fact, the events discussed in the work are merely a reflection of what Wasserstein experienced in her own travels, first in eastern Europe, before the fall of the Soviet Union, and in Poland, in a town where she could see no evidence of her Jewish ancestry. It was her goal not only to raise certain political and social questions but also to illuminate her Jewish heritage, using her work as her vehicle. The play was admired by critics for its humor and insight, and it managed to earn the playwright both an Outer Critics Circle Award and an Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award nomination for best play in 1993.

Author Biography

Wendy Wasserstein is recognized not only for the celebration of women in her feminist plays but also for the celebration of her Jewish heritage. She was born on October 8, 1950, in Brooklyn, New York. Wasserstein initially attended the Calhoun School to study dance with Judy Taylor and spent considerable time at Broadway matinees. Her playwriting began in the years she attended Mt. Holyoke College, where she earned a bachelor of arts in history in 1971. During this time, a friend managed to convince Wasserstein to take a playwriting course at Smith College. She was so taken with the genre that, upon graduation from Holyoke, she studied creative writing at City College of the City University of New York, where she received her master of arts.

In an interview with Esther Cohen in Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, she shares her recollections on when she really began writing. Wasserstein remembers writing something called the Mother-Daughter Fashion Show in high