Vanya and Sonia and
Masha and Spike at the John Golden Theater
In Christopher Durang’s new play, "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike," Chekhov references, coffee
cups and dignity are tossed around.
Kristine Nielsen has a fit, Sigourney Weaver has a fit, and David Hyde
Pierce has an even worse fit. Clothes are alternately chosen, changed, and
then torn off, (usually) in that order.
There is prophecy, serious acting, and sibling rivalry. Suffice it to say that theatergoers looking
for stability on Broadway need not apply.
It’s worth
noting that "Vanya" (and though I
hesitate to use this abbreviation since it smacks of Chekhov, I’m sure Durang
would find it delicious) is a comedy that’s substantially funny in places, and
not a glorified soap opera reveling in its own melodrama. In the play, the fifty-somethings Vanya
(Pierce) and his adopted sister Sonia (Nielsen), after having spent years
caring for their Alzeimer’s-ridden parents in rural Pennsylvania, are treated
to a visit by their other sister, Masha (Weaver), who skipped out on the family
years ago to pursue an acting career.
She brings along her young boy-toy, Spike (the surprisingly fantastic
Billy Magnussen), who, we are repeatedly reminded, came very close to landing the lead role in HBO’s “Entourage 2.” Tut-tutting in the background is supposedly
prescient housekeeper Cassandra (Shalita Grant). (Ms. Grant, by the way, manages to play with
comic aplomb and success a character whose manic ramblings would be brutally
unfunny from many a more talented actress than she.) Liesel Allen Yeager is there too, playing a
character whose name I’ve forgotten.
Masha owns the house, and wants to sell it out
from under her siblings; Sonia wants a life and a lover (uniquely, I’m sure); and
Vanya, though he says otherwise, doesn’t seem to care much one way or the
other. Hilarity ensues.
Mr. Durang’s
prose is elegant and free-flowing in a distinctive way, but he’s funnier in
passive, reflective situations than in active ones. Unfortunately, the passive sections can be
drearily exposition-heavy. Fortunately,
in the right moments, he makes stars out of Mr. Pierce, Mr. Magnussen, and—as I’ve
mentioned—Ms. Grant, simply because, in very different ways, they each fit into
the story without weighing it down.
Vanya’s quiet,
perhaps inevitably, builds to a climactic and wildly amusing outburst at the
end of the second act. Rather than
taking one of two of the traditional approaches in making a character’s woes
either entirely dramatic or entirely ridiculous, Mr. Durang has wisely chosen
to intersperse such clever witticisms among Vanya’s reflections as to create,
on the whole, a funnier monologue up there with some of Woody Allen’s
best. This culmination is a perfect
representation of the unseen devotion that Mr. Pierce gives to the character. His passion clearly burns beneath the
mild-mannered, housebound amateur playwright during the entirety of the
play. If I were a betting man, I’d say
David Hyde Pierce is going places.
Spike is a
faintly ludicrous character whose narcissisms are balanced by how little he
cares that he is an idiot. (Mr.
Durang—lucky for him—has caught this trope right before it becomes a
cliché.) Similarly to Ms. Grant’s
performance, from any other actor Spike would likely have been completely
uninteresting, but the extent to which Mr. Magnussen extends some of Spike’s
least savory characteristics make him a delight to watch.
On the
whole, the show is very funny. There are
parts that could be improved—Sonia is relatively dull but for a sweetly
romantic moment late in the play, and Masha is occasionally frivolously
over-the-top—but all in all, it makes for an enjoyable and uncommonly droll
evening.
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