Sisters confront fracturing lives

Mary (Jill Gascoine) is lying naked in the bathtub: wrists slit, dead for two days but not smelly -- and that’s the least of her daughters’ confusion. Named for the cities in which they were born (hence the play’s title, “Sister Cities”), the four offspring of Mary’s multiple marriages gather to figure out what just happened -- not only to their mother but also to their own fracturing lives.

Plays about reunions of family members, college roommates or vets ought to come with a warning label -- Caution: May contain an excess of dramatic revelations and long-held resentments -- and “Sister Cities,” a Circus Theatricals production at the Hayworth, doesn’t avoid those pitfalls.

Headstrong lawyer Carolina (Susan Ziegler) just lost her husband to a less educated woman; preppie Dallas (Nickella Moschetti) has a very J.D. Salinger secret; go-getter Baltimore (Jade Sealey) won’t shut up about going to Harvard, so we know it can’t be going well. But it’s lesbian novelist Austin (playwright Colette Freedman), living with her mother for far too long, who will share the darkest news.

Director Elise Robertson keeps the pace brisk, creating a sense of messy familiarity as her vehement cast flops, faints and chugs vodka from the sofa of Kitty Rose’s single-unit set. Ziegler’s performance makes the deepest impression, a lifetime of irony and endurance in her every rueful gesture.

Freedman hasn’t yet relaxed into her own voice; her laughs can feel pushed, her storytelling too schematic, and she probably shouldn’t act in her own plays. There’s a lot of stomping and emoting in “Sister Cities,” but death -- the play’s ostensible subject -- never makes its strange stillness felt.

Nonetheless, this emerging playwright is trying to reach something difficult and vital. Joining her for the ride, however bumpy, looks like a trip worth taking.

“Sister Cities,” Circus Theatricals Studio Theatre at the Hayworth, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. 7 p.m. Sundays. Ends July 2. (323) 960-1054. $15. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.