Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – By Christopher Durang; Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw. Set Design by Kristin Loeffler; Costumes by Chelsea Kerl; Lighting Design by Anshuman Bhatia; Sound Design by Melanie Chen Cole. Presented by Gloucester Stage Company, 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, through June 23
By Mike Hoban
In the opening scene of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Gloucester Stage Company’s first offering of its 34th season, we meet Sonia (Adrianne Krstansky) and Vanya (Diego Arciniegas), having coffee in their picturesque farmhouse overlooking a pond in Buck’s County, PA. Although they are brother and sister (Sonia is adopted), they banter like an eccentric middle-aged (50s) married couple: The fire’s gone out, but they’re too indifferent to move on. Sonia has turned wallowing in self-pity into an Olympic sport, while Vanya seems more resigned to his fate. The pair has spent the last 15 years of their life taking care of their elderly, now deceased, parents. They lament not what could have been but how meaningless their lives are, particularly in contrast to their sister Masha – the B-list movie star who rose to fame as the protagonist of the wildly popular B-movie “Sexy Killer,” which she milked for four sequels.
If this sounds as dreary as a Russian winter, don’t worry; the plot (and the laughs) kick into high gear with the entrance of Cassandra (Eryn O’Sullivan), the loopy but visionary house cleaner. “Beware the Ides of March,” she bellows before turning soothsayer, warning Sonia and Vanya that “portends of dismay and calamity yawn beneath the yonder cliff…I see doom and destruction swirling around you!” That dismay and calamity (or what passes for such in the suburbs) soon arrives in the form of the five-times-divorced clinical narcissist Masha (Wendy Waring) – with her hunky, half-her-age boy toy Spike (Jaime José Hernández) in tow. Unbeknownst to Sonia and Vanya, she is considering selling the home out from under them as her career is tailing off, and Spike is her validation that, despite advancing age, she’s still “got it.” If it sounds a bit like a sitcom setup, it is, but Durang is so skilled at his craft, and the cast tears into the material with such glee that it really doesn’t matter.
Krstansky is perfect as Sonia, who is steeped in self-loathing at the outset before transforming herself one magical night at a costume party, where she adopts the persona of the evil queen in “Snow White” – as played by Maggie Smith in California Suite – if that makes any sense. Her performance is alternately hilarious and touching. As Cassandra, O’Sullivan is adept at providing most of Durang’s quotient of zaniness, particularly in a hilarious scene where she practices voodoo on the reptilian Masha. Waring captures Masha’s self-absorption with great comic flair, as well as her fear of mortality, knowing how Hollywood treats aging women. Arciniegas admirably serves as the straight man to the madness around him and makes the most of his opportunity to shine in a too-long, slightly dated monologue about how technology affects our ability to connect with one another. (Side note: the matinee audience, mostly skewed to the north of AARP membership qualifications, vigorously applauded the tirade.)
Hernandez delivers as the self-centered and clueless Spike, with some adroit physical comedy and with his failed audition monologue, and recent Eliot Norton Award winner Valyn Lyric Turner (Best Featured Actor) is buoyant as the innocent and beautiful next-door neighbor Nina, who draws Spike’s interest. Set designer Kristin Loeffler has painstakingly created a quintessential summer home, loaded with knickknacks and memories, and Chelsea Kerl’s costuming, which includes matching Sonia’s frumpy blouse to the throw pillows on the living room couch, is superb.
As you may have gathered from the title, there are plenty of Chekhov references in the play, from the names (the parents were university professors who were active in community theater) to the debate about whether the grouping of trees in the back of the house constitutes a “cherry orchard.” But even if you think of Chekhov as the Russian navigator on Star Trek, it really doesn’t matter. There are plenty of laughs to be had in this very funny work, and as anyone following the news can attest, we can certainly use more of those. For tickets and information, go to: https://gloucesterstage.com/
