Caroline Aaron & Stephanie Janssen in All the Days (photo: T. Charles Erickson)

At McCarter Theatre in Princeton through May 29, is the world premiere of Sharyn Rothstein’s new family “dramedy,” All the Days. Three generations have their issues: divorced parents in their sixties, uptight divorced daughter, and a grandson approaching his bar mitzvah. The central conflict, though, is mother-daughter. Author Rothstein says, “Mothers and daughters, if they can stand it, should see the play together.”

The action begins in the mother’s kitchen as she recuperates from eye surgery, and her daughter convinces her to come to Philadelphia “until the bar mitzvah.” The Philly living room becomes the setting for most of the play’s numerous short scenes in which the characters laugh together, yell at each other, and reveal their secrets and desires.

Caroline Aaron plays mother Ruth Zweigman, overweight and overbearing, afflicted with diabetes and its consequences. To manage her fears and resentments, not to mention her grief over the death of her only son, she lashes out. Early on, I found her constant comebacks and jibes simply unpleasant, but Ruth warms as the play unfolds.

Daughter Miranda (played by Stephanie Janssen) doesn’t have the temperament for the constant sparring with mom and fled Long Island for the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. A social worker and newly converted Christian, Miranda’s in the business of fixing other people’s problems, and is frustrated by a mother who doesn’t want to be fixed.

Ruth’s ex-husband Delmore, played by Ron Orbach, is trying to rekindle a relationship with his prickly ex-wife, drawing on her nostalgia and, perhaps, thinking ahead to what his “liver disease” will bring. Ruth sets him straight, saying, “You can’t live in the past and the future at the same time.”

Rothstein holds a degree in public health as well as her MFA, and wove into this play significant public health concerns—problems of diabetes, diet, and stress-related illness among them.

It takes an unerring sense of timing to keep a two and a half hour production moving without a single check-your-watch moment, which McCarter Artistic Director Emily Mann accomplishes superbly as director. Mann says, “I laughed out loud as I read [Rothstein’s] fiercely funny characters, exquisitely wrought, struggling with dilemmas at once heartbreaking and hilarious.”

Leslie Ayvazian plays Ruth’s sister Monica, absolutely able to give as good as she gets and a long-time realist where Delmore is concerned. Justin Hagan plays Miranda’s boyfriend Stew only now meeting her parents and soon realizing why he’s been spared heretofore. Yet Stew recognizes the mother’s essential loneliness and suggests she meet a friend of his—an herbalist, whom Ruth styles “a medical man,” who soon evolves into “a doctor, a surgeon.” This friend, Baptiste Wright, played by Raphael Nash Thompson, provides a welcome layer of calm and understanding to Ruth, like a smoothing, soothing layer of butter over the bumpy and fractured muffin underneath. Matthew Kuenne is the bar mitzvah boy.

Production credits to Daniel Ostling (sets), Jess Goldstein (costumes), Jeff Croiter (lighting), and Mark Bennett (music and sound  design).

For tickets, call McCarter Theatre’s box office (609)258-2787  or visit the box office online.