Although other scripts were considered as the play for the UIL One Act Play competition, theater director Maureen Siegel said Thinner Than Water was the right choice because it was the best match for her student actors.

The play Thinner Than Water is about a brief period of time when a group of half siblings come together in the final days of their sick father’s life and the complex- ities of dealing with acting like a family among people who are not fully related.

The siblings struggled with the absence of their fa- ther from their lives and not knowing each other as true brothers and sisters because they grew up in separate family units with three different mothers.

For example: Renee struggles with not wanting to be at the hospital watching someone she barely knows

die although that person is her father. The only reason she is there is because her younger half-sister wants her there for support.

The plot of the play was somewhat confusing for the audience because many scenes had to be cut from the play because of the UIL’s strict 40 minute time limit. However, Siegel said this was the easier play to cut down than the others that were considered.

The play leaves the audience hanging wondering what will come of this family, which is made up of people who are only tenuously related to each other.

Staying late in the afternoon the actresses strug- gled with the time frame given to them to remember the script within one week.

The play seems to be a bit of a tragedy because the characters are too estranged from each other to ever develop the same kind of relationships that a “nor- mal” family typically establishes. It seems they will never be a “true family.”