Review: Emmy Rossum and Zoë Winters in the Sisterly Space Drama Walden

As a child, part of having a sibling is trying to get as far away from them as possible. As adults, we learn it’s not so easy to break away. This experience has never been so richly mined as it is in Amy Berryman’s Walden at Second Stage Theater, where for one sister even going to outer space can’t erase their rivalry or their bond. Perfectly executed with memorable characters and rife with emotion, Walden is a remarkable experience that shouldn’t be missed.

The time is the near future, when climate change has ravaged most of the world. Stella (Emmy Rossum) and Cassie (Zoë Winters) are twin NASA scientists who were raised by their astronaut father to save humanity by colonizing space. For initially unclear reasons, Stella left the program and estranged herself from Cassie, who lived out their planned destiny by attempting to farm on the moon. Returning to Earth a hero, Cassie is shocked to learn Stella is engaged to an environmental activist named Bryan (Motell Foster). He refuses to own anything with a screen and grows his own food in a remote spot relatively untouched by pollution. He also wants the government to defund NASA and instead funnel money into reviving the Earth.

The set-up may strain credulity when written out, but Berryman’s script keeps everything grounded. Her writing succinctly sets up this backstory, and the well-drawn specifics of this world quickly become ammunition to fuel the twists and turns in the relationships between the three characters, particularly the twin sisters. Rossum and Winters’ standout performances complement each other and add layers to their special bond. Though they start off stilted because of their estrangement, they’re soon delightfully reciting their father’s favorite passage of Thoreau’s Walden (in unison, naturally).

Foster’s Bryan is equally strong, with an invigorating openness. Like the sisters, he has a complicated relationship with a sibling that, in some ways, has led to his hermetic lifestyle. This quality makes him appealing to Stella and Cassie, who long for a deeper emotional connection that they can’t seem to bridge with each other. As Cassie learns more about Stella’s life and begins to grow envious, we see their rivalry play out too. Stella had always been the leader until leaving NASA left her adrift, while Cassie has codependently oriented her life around Stella’s ambition and interests. This is evident in moments small and large: the lines where Cassie refers to she and her sister as the single unit “we” hit just as strongly as the emotional bombshells set off later in the play.

Part of what keeps the play enthralling is how it refuses to take anyone’s side. I found myself agreeing with both Bryan and Cassie as they debated the merits of staying on Earth versus attempting life on another planet. In another scene, Stella and Cassie agree that it’s significant Stella got engaged to Bryan so quickly, but they disagree on what it means. The writing is open enough that both of their interpretations are correct at the same time. This duality also allows the sisters to be alternatively loving and awful to each other without creating a villain. As the resentments between the sisters stack up and threaten their relationship and possibly all of humanity, we see how siblings can do quietly devasting things while genuinely trying to love and help each other. It’s one of the most realistic stories about sisters I have ever seen.

Director Whitney White and her production team match the cast and writing. Matt Saunders’s set blends futuristic touches with things recognizably of our time (which for the characters is a throwback to the past). It feels as lived in and realistic as the dirt-filled planters where the cast plants vegetables. The lighting (Adam Honoré), sound (Lee Kinney), and costumes (Qween Jean) are striking.

Walden is the best kind of speculative fiction, balancing the most crucial questions about humanity’s future with the problems of three little people. Unlike Casablanca, Walden doesn’t say that their interpersonal issues amount to less than a hill of beans in this crazy world. Instead, it offers that family relationships, like colonies on Mars, can offer hope. This is one I’ll be thinking about for a long time, and Walden’s life on the stage should be just as lengthy.