Sisyphean Quick Fix review – affecting account of uphill family struggles

Bettina Paris’s play has a scenario that will hit home for many. Two sisters, far apart, navigate caring for their father who behaves, says one, “like a 62-year-old teenager”. Pip lives near him in Malta; Krista has moved to London. Does that render their responsibilities unequal? Used to navigating his alcoholism together, they provide support for each other but a potent mix of guilt, resentment and envy hangs in the air when his condition worsens.

In Nicky Allpress’s production, Paris plays Krista and Tina Rizzo is Pip, the pair swiftly establishing a rapport based on fond ribbing and blunt honesty. Their love is palpable but you wonder, as is often the case, whether they would be friends if they weren’t siblings. Paris contrasts them quickly: Pip is smartly dressed, holds a regular job and has just got engaged at a fancy restaurant; Krista dines on Pot Noodles, balances bar shifts with auditions and has a similarly unsteady love life. There is light humour throughout, tempering a doleful tone established by snippets of the Rolling Stones (You Can’t Always Get What You Want) and Guns N’ Roses’ version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

On a set with two trunks – each with stickers of the different countries – the show initially switches between their separate life dramas, interrupted by phone calls to and from their father whose behaviour is erratic. Paris’s script, which would work well as an audio drama, conveys how accustomed both are to the situation, how efficiently they work as a team, but how it still derails their daily lives.

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When Krista returns to Malta for a family visit, you expect the drama to reach boiling point, especially with a wedding on the horizon and their father’s request to see their mother who has separated from him. That escalation never quite occurs, flattening the latter section of the play. Part of the problem is that the dad does not emerge vividly enough and neither do the other supporting characters. But what remains is an affecting, sincere portrait of sibling solidarity.

• At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh , until 26 August

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