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US playwright Adam Bock’s ‘The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’ is an epic family drama, boiled down to its bitter essence. It’s like somebody hit the fast forward button on a longer play, editing out all the scenes that didn’t solely feature the five eponymous Wasp socialites and their long-suffering black assistant Heather.
Imagine if Samuel Beckett had written an episode of ‘Sex and the City’ and you might vaguely appropriate the vibe of Trip Cullman’s production. Each scene takes place in a peculiarly dislocated world where the quintet bicker venomously in front of the huge, empty picture frames of Richard Kent’s set.
What initially seems like an amusing snark-fest – twins Gemma and Garden are the appalling control-freaks who prey on vulnerable Willow’s insecurities, Mouse is the promiscuous young ditz, India is the workshy nice one – comes to a head surprisingly early when one of the girls, driven to distraction by the bitchy potboiler of high society family life, blows her own brains out at a gala.
As an accelerated study in the emptiness of keeping up appearances and the toxicity of money and blood ties, ‘The Colby Sisters’ is pretty spot on. A seemingly innocuous society comedy on which the brakes suddenly fail and everything starts to accelerate at horrifying pace.
It’s a fine all-female cast too, with young actor Alice Sanders particularly impressive as the simultaneously lackadaisical and vulnerable Mouse. Nonetheless, this isn’t Beckett, and I’m not sure if the ostentatious minimalism of Bolt’s 75-minute play really quite works. Though the characters and story are captivating, ‘The Colby Sisters’ feels pared back to the point where it’s become rather episodic. I could have handled a little longer in these sisters’ world, ghastly though it is.