This portrait of sisterhood at Canadian Stage tries to tug at the heart, but pulls a bit too forcefully

This two-hander, now running at the Berkeley Street Theatre in a world premiere production sensitively directed by Andrea Donaldson, focuses not on powerful queens nor mythical Greek heroines. Its story involves no epic quests nor usurpations of the throne. 

Instead, “You, Always” is probably one of the most intimate and domestic plays written by Shields to date. Its two characters are sisters Liz (Maev Beaty) and Delia (Liisa Repo-Martell). In an early flashback sequence, Shields offers a conflict that’s probably all too relatable for anyone with a sibling: Liz and Delia bicker about who can use their shared bathroom.

It’s through quiet moments like these — the pair squabbling over a TV remote, gossiping about their crushes, navigating the death of their mother — that Shields crafts a touching portrait of sisterhood. 

In “You, Always,” she writes like a painter would render a landscape with watercolour. Her scenes are delicate and fleeting. It’s structured like a memory play, with short, enjambed vignettes that hopscotch across decades, from the sisters’ early childhood through to middle age, and almost every stage of life in between. 

Details about the sisters emerge through these wispy, fragmented scenes. Liz is the eldest, a sharpshooting lawyer who likes to carefully plan out her life goals. Delia, by contrast, is goofier, a musician with a vivid imagination who enjoys living life more spontaneously. 

Together, Beaty and Repo-Martell possess such layered chemistry that it’s easy to believe they’re sisters. It’s in the cadence of their speech — how one can pick up where the other leaves off. It’s in the sororal warmth of their embrace. It’s in how their deep, sisterly love for each other never wavers, even when they’re deep in argument. 

Donaldson’s production charts the trajectory of their relationship with care and clarity. Ting-Huan Christine Urquhart’s all-black set consists of various geometric objects — a hemisphere, an altar, a rectangular crater — that double and triple as various locations: a bathtub, a toilet, a porch, bleachers at a basketball game. 

André du Toit’s exceptional lighting designs also help to distinguish the various time periods and locales. A move to a new setting is noted with a quick flip from cool to warm tones, or an instantaneous change in the angle at which the lights hit the stage. 

With each passing vignette, Shields gradually fills out portraits of the sisters, exploring how their relationship evolves over time and how — after one of the play’s main revelations — it’s ultimately tested. 

But while “You, Always” tries earnestly to pull at the heartstrings, it does so a bit too forcefully. Key emotional beats in the play’s back end rely too heavily on visual and verbal callbacks to earlier scenes. Rather than letting these moments emerge organically, it’s as if Shields is trying to cue her audience every time they should be shedding a tear. 

Some of these cues, to be fair, are effective. On opening night, I could hear collective sniffles all around me during certain scenes. But I could never fully immerse myself alongside them, always aware of the hidden hand behind each vignette, manufacturing every emotional beat and tying each important moment in the first half to a corresponding moment in the second.

It all leaves “You, Always” feeling a bit too neat, a bit too trite and a bit too hollow.