Eavesdropping on sisters at war

Green Beans by Rosalind Wyllie, The Customs House, South Shields until Saturday

This is really a play for mothers, daughters and sisters.  However I did hear plenty of men in the audience chortling at the jokes.

It is a brilliantly witty debut from new writer Rosalind Wyllie.

The plot is simple, and all the better for it. The narrator Sarah, played sympathetically and charmingly by Victoria Elliot, returns home armed with a vengeful plan to get the better of hated younger sister Lucy (Samantha Phyllis Morris).

Anyone with a sister will be familiar with the envy, rivalry, malevolence and insecurity, which blossom into full-blown war between Sarah and Lucy.  Each thinks the other is the golden child.  Admirably directed by Carol McGuigan, the play loses none of its tension from being almost completely contained in mum Rita’s home. 

Scenes are broken into bite-size chunks by pop song extracts and as Sarah has been working in an aquarium, there are plenty of fantastic sea life and crustacean metaphors for the sometimes cruel nature of family life, also acting as pauses in the drama.

Wyllie’s script perfectly captures family repartee, whether through the acid tongues of Lucy and Sarah, the easy wit of Rita (Jacqueline Phillips) or the self-help regurgitations of likeable interloper Tom (Micky Cochrane).

        Tamsin Lewis