Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews for the new play by Alexandra Woods.
i News: **** “All three actors bounce off each other beautifully, but Griffin stands out, equally convincing as bratty teenager and witty-yet-vulnerable mum.”
Time Out: *** “Also extremely impressive is how the actors all age their characters, year by year almost minute by minute, so subtly you often don’t notice it’s happening. Suddenly, they’re in their thirties, then their fifties. And how like life is that?”
The Stage: *** “Abigail Graham’s direction, for the most part, is deftly handled, though a few non-verbal moments feel jarringly over-emphatic in their approach. Naomi Kuyck-Cohen’s sparse, purgatorial design can occasionally come across as overly severe, the warmth of the sisters swallowed up by sharp edges.”
Evening Standard: *** “But for every deft touch in the script, there are moments when you can see Wood ticking off references to cuisine, art, sexuality. It’s a mixed bag, like most families.”
Exeunt Magazine: “Paired with an ending which, while truthful, does feel a bit complacent, and contained within an increasingly unsurprising though delicately observed play, The Tyler Sisters lets me get away with feeling not very much at all.”
The Guardian: *** “What is refreshing about Wood’s play is that it is emphatically contemporary. The women’s lives contain divorce, same-sex love and lesbian motherhood. Men and marriage aren’t necessary. As Gail says: “I don’t want to waste time on an average relationship.” “
The Upcoming: **** “This piece is a lighthearted and sharp exploration of the mind-boggling dichotomy of being a sister, and what this role brings. If anyone watching is a sister, they will recognise a lot of themselves in The Tyler Sisters, fighting for those shared and endless desires to be heard, listened to and understood.”
British Theatre Guide: “Unfortunately, for all its good-hearted humour towards the three Tyler sisters, the play is a superficial sketch lacking both dramatic tension and social relevance.”
The Telegraph: *** “British theatre goes into lacklustre hibernation mode at this time of year, so a little gratitude should be expressed to playwright Alexandra Wood, director Abigail Graham and Hampstead theatre for offering something to draw us out of doors that resembles business as usual: a new piece, The Tyler Sisters, ambitiously charting the relationship of a trio of siblings over 40 years – and intriguingly projecting that period of time right to the end of this new decade.”
The Times: *** “Alexandra Wood’s starkly intimate if overlong play measures out three lives in tantalisingly incomplete detail, each scene, however short or long, representing a year.”
The Tyler Sisters continues to play at the Hampstead Theatre until the 18th January.