Difficult sisterhood appears to be a recurring theme on stage this year. Lulu Raczka’s Antigone focused on the two sisters in the Sophocles drama while Alexandra Wood’s The Tyler Sisters travelled through four decades to show the hard edges of the sibling bond alongside the love and loyalty.
Chloë Moss’s Run Sister Run is darker and grittier still, with few warming moments, but it creates an unvarnished portrait of a pained relationship that is raw and real. Run Sister Run travels in the opposite direction to Wood’s play, reversing across four decades to take us from middle-aged estrangement to pure, giggling, young sisterliness.
We first meet Ursula (Helena Lymbery) and Connie (Lucy Ellinson) when they are well into their adult years. Connie is living in an upwardly mobile life with a troubled teenage son (Lucas Button) and an overbearing husband (Silas Carson), whose trajectories are also shown in reverse. Ursula, with her scrappy Asda bag and her shabby clothes, is far more unmoored than her older sister.
Each scene appears to be a crystallised memory that has marked their relationship and, cumulatively, they have a deeply touching effect, showing how the sisters’ love has become mired by unfair sacrifice, selfishness and betrayal. “Blood makes you related, love makes you family,” says Ursula, tacitly questioning their bond.
The issue of class is never spoken about but theirs are lives that involve the care system, a lack of money and, it is hinted, early family dysfunction. Moss’s script does not fill in all the holes in their backstories – their mother appears absent in childhood, their father is never mentioned and the focus stays on Connie’s family life. This is partly for plot purposes, but Ursula’s chaotic life, with its addictions and its entanglements with the criminal justice system, feels impressionistic and under-written.
Actors remain on the corners of the stage, crouching or standing in stillness, even when they have walked off the central set. They also manoeuvre props while still in character, it seems, in moods such as anger or playfulness. Rosie Elnile’s plain, versatile stage design – a plot of green in which benches or chairs are placed – is surrounded by large glass cases filled with paraphernalia from the sisters’ past (stereo systems, a plate of toast), and actors fold themselves inside the boxes or stand beside them. It adds a note of surrealism to Charlotte Bennett’s production though it feels slightly puzzling, too.
Ellinson and Lymbery embody their characters wholly, along with the push and pull of their relationship over the years, and we believe in their resentment, hurt and adulterated yet enduring love – right to the unsentimental end.
• At the Crucible Studio theatre, Sheffield, until 21 March. Then at Soho theatre, London, 25 March-2 May.
