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MOK-Flq1.11am.-213.m. • SIZZLING RICE SOUP • EGGROUJ :SHRIMP BALL & BROCCOLI • VEGETABLE FRIED RICE • SINGAPORE NOODLE CHICKEN • MONGOUAN BEEF • FORTUNE COOKIES • PEANUT BUTTER SUNDAE ITEMS GALORE INCLUDING 4 ENTREES! si 9 FOR TWO! $525 per person •EXOTIC DRINKS • CHOICE COCKTAILS • PRIVATE DINING ROOM • CATERING • LUNCHES THE GPEAT WALE 33135 Grand River (Drakeshire Shopping Center) 476-9181 COUPON BUY ONE - GET ONE FREE BRING A FRIEND FOR LUNCH MONDAY THRU FRIDAY - Buy 1 Soup & Sandwich Lunch - Get one Free SATURDAY Buy one Buffet Lunch - Get 1 Free Monday-Friday 11 to 2, Saturday 11 to 3 108 East Main Street, Northville 349-0522 ;11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 COUPON EXPIRES 10/30/93 or Wendy Wasserstein, theater has become something of a family affair. Family is a familiar theme for the writer, whether focusing on fictional relatives (the young single Jewish woman trying to escape the claustrophobic clutch of her parents, who wish her wed, in Isn't It Romantic? or a closely knit family of feisty friends (the yuppie-ish best buddies of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Heidi Chronicles). The award-winning writer's latest project is a kissing cousin to her other works. Yet, at the same time, the two are distantly related. The Sisters Rosensweig who share the spotlight and applause nights and days on stage at the Ethel Bar- rymore Theatre here are Jewish stars in their own constellations: Sara is a celebrated banker; Pfeni, an accomplished writer; Gorgeous, a happily married wife/mother and sisterhood tour guide who has found new prominence as a broad- cast personality. But beneath the surface is the winter — and spring, summer and fall — of their discontent, as they attempt to travel the road to life's happiness without always bumping into its obstacles. Wendy Wasserstein's The Sisters Rosensweig explores the relative nature of hap- piness among this trio of women who, despite cherished triumphs in their careers, seek escape routes from their more perplexing personal lives, where men have proved to be miserable mysteries. Success does not elude Ms. Wassersstein. With memories of receiving her Pulitzer Prize for Heidi Chronicles still fresh and vibrant, Wendy Wasserss- tein continues to chronicle the vulnerability of the human condition in all its varied stages. The playwright had a re- vered source of inspiration for this Sisters act. Michael Elkin is entertain- ment editor of the Jewish Ex- ponent in Philadelphia. "Chekhov is my favorite writer," she says. Chekhov would have 'felt at home with the Sisters Rosensweig — if his home had been a Jewish one. Wendy Wasserstein has been told that her three sisters could pull up chairs at the table and share a Sunday dinner with Chekhov's Three Sisters and all would go home feasting on life's little riches. Ms. Wasserstein doesn't necessarily need such com- parisons — as nice as they are — for nourishment. The accomplished 42-year-old playwright from New York is no new face in a crowd. Indeed, the playwright has a ticket to ride these days, which is more than some of her fans have: The Sisters Rosensweig is one of the hot- test tickets on Broadway. "I feel very lucky to have such a career," she says. Originally, the bright lights of Broadway didn't beckon as much as the flashing "Sale" signs at a nearby department store. While a student majoring in intellectual history at Mount Holyoke College, Wendy Wasserstein took a major detour one summer, taking courses in playwright- ing at Smith College at a friend's suggestion. "Afterward," advised the friend, "we can shop." Theater has been a spree ever since with Ms. Wassers- tein's first New York play, Uncommon Women and Others, finding an un- commonly welcome recep- tion by critics and audiences alike in 1977. With all the changes the playwright has gone through over the years — switching career objectives, losing 40 pounds in the past two years — the writing re- mains consistently accla- imed. Often, as was the case with Isn't it Romantic? and is the case with her current Broadway production, the wry Wasserstein wit is flavored with a Jewish sen- sibility. The sisters on stage at the Barrymore are not Jews in name only; Judaism and Jewish culture are topics of conversation, with some Wendy Wasserstein: A sister act. characters accepting, others dismissing. "There are different kinds of Judaism represented on stage," says Ms. Wassers- tein, with Sara the banker rating the most interest among the sisters. She is "the self-hating Jew," notes the playwright, one who shuns her religion as if it were a demanding creditor, always knocking at her soul when she would rather shut out the sounds of her past. Sara's intellect overrides her emotions, and she views religion as a ritualistic anachronism. Perhaps the most craftily and cunningly etched Jew- ish character is not a mem- ber of the Rosensweig family at all. He is an outsider, warming up to the iceberg of a woman that Sara has become after two unsuc- cessful marriages. Merv, winningly played by Robert Klein — he just cap- tured an Outer Critics Circle Award for his work, one of four such honors for the play — is a Zionist whose mission goes beyond his trips to Israel: He is intent on bring- ing Sara back to the world of the living and loving. Sisters hits home for the playwright. "The different way the people react in the play to their sense of Judaism" — Sara denies it; Gorgeous embraces it — "is somewhat similar to what I had in my own home," she recalls of some unorthodox practices. "Like lamb with butter sauce to the rabbi's chil-