The Macaluso Sisters
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art 227 State St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
press release: Spotlight Cinema is $7 per screening, or free for MMoCA members and anyone age 18 and younger. Ticket sales begin at 6:30 pm in the museum lobby.
On the top floor of a crumbling apartment building in sunny Palermo, five orphaned sisters live with a huge flock of doves that they rent out for weddings. Their fairy-tale existence is cursed when tragedy strikes at the beach, a single moment that forever ruptures their lives. Adapting her own play, director Emma Dante makes brilliant use of a three-act structure, skipping decades between each section of the story—we next encounter the sisters in middle and old age, still in the same apartment. The huge scope requires a large cast—12 actors playing 5 roles between them—and Dante pulls it all together beautifully, crafting a moving and delicate tale of lifelong sisterhood.