Vanya & Sonia & MAsha & Spike Review ~ June 5 2015

Check out Durang's Chekhov mash-up

Lawrance Bernabo
For the News Tribune


Each year in the last edition of The Wave we publish a list of memorable moments from what area audiences saw on stage during the year. But I can tell you right here and now that the production of "Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike" directed by Julie Ahasay that opened at the Duluth Playhouse on Thursday night is making that list and it is making it at least twice, because Christopher Durang's Tony Award winning play provides not one but two absolute tour de force scenes well worth seeing.


Weary Vanya (John Pokrzywinski) and glum Sonia (Christa Schulz) are a pair of middle-aged siblings living out their unrewarding lives in the family home, when their cleaning woman, Cassandra (Kate Horvath), starts howling dire portents of imminent disaster. Enter Masha (Carrie Mohn), their relentlessly narcissistic movie star sister, and her latest boy toy, the totally buffed Spike (Matthew Smith).


The three siblings are all single (Masha for the sixth time) and were named by their professor parents for characters from Chekhov plays, which pretty much explains why the next door neighbor (Bailey Boots) is named Nina and ends up calling Vanya "Uncle." It also explains why Vanya fears change, why Sonia insists their relatively small collection of cherry trees constitutes an orchard, and why a major plot line has to do with the possible loss of the ancestral home because Masha wants to sell the place.


At this point the pressing question you need answered is: "Do I, average local person who goes to the theatre with some regularity, really know enough about the works of Chekhov to enjoy this play?"

Here is a simple test you can take in the privacy of your own home to answer this question: Name three plays written by Chekov. You get 70 points for the first one you can name, 20 points for the second, and 10 points for the third, for a possible total of 100 points. You can also earn 5 bonus points if you know Chekhov's first name is not Pavel.


Now, to really and truly enjoy "Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike" you need to score 0 points--or better--on this test, which, I happen to think, most people can do.

Chekov might provides the dramatic bones of this play, but he does not constitute the comedic musculature. Durang has always been known for mining popular culture in his plays, and there are jokes about everything from Helen Keller and CSV Pharmacy to "Entourage" and the Orestia.


With Cassandra constantly prophesying doom and destruction this show reminded me of "Mighty Aphrodite" as much as it did "A Night in the Ukraine." Granted, the more you know about "The Cherry Orchard," Uncle Vanya," "The Three Sisters" and "The Seagull" the more jokes and oblique references you will get (plus the show's fundamental mash-up of the four plays). But I can assure you those are not where the biggest laughs are in this show. Not even close.


The main sparks in this play are between Sonia and Masha, who are such polar opposites that the only thing they have in common is their knowledge of how to push each other's buttons, which leads to a series of escalating confrontations that conclude in an epic comically competitive crying jag. If Sonia is not the primary character in this cast, then she is the pivotal one. Sonia needs to find her real voice, but she is never going to find it in the company of her siblings. Where she finds it--and whose voice she finds as a substitute in the interim--is one of the chief pleasures of the evening.


Durang must have an affection for the button-down mind of Bob Newhart, because he crafts a wonderful scene that consists entirely of Sonia's side of an unexpected phone call. Schulz has always had one of the most distinctive ways of reading a line of anybody on stage in Duluth, with how she elongates syllables to draw out a word or phrase. In this scene she shows she can do the same thing with silences. Sonia runs the gamut of emotions from A through the vast majority of the alphabet in this scene, and you can read each as it ripples across Schulz's face and her stunningly expressive eyes. There is a moment where Sonia tells a lie and the audience audibly moaned, feeling the character's pain. It is not often that you would describe the applause that follows a scene as being heartfelt, but that is what Schulz earned for her mesmerizing and touching virtuoso performance.


The focus on Sonia and Masha forces Vanya into the background, and you think that the whole point of his character is that being gay essentially makes him the requisite third sister. But then a small spark suddenly makes him explode in a frantic yet encyclopedic rant down memory lane that attacks the value of change. When you reduce the differences between then and now to Halley Mills versus Lindsay Lohan, the past is going to win and win big. Vanya's harangue is exhaustively brilliant and Pokrzywinski masterfully rides the crest of the torrent of words. This is one of those monologues you hear and immediately want to go back and read it over and over again to better appreciate its levels and complexities. I need a copy because I am posting it for my Media & Society students next semester.


Mohn gives Masha a musical lilt to her voice as she prattles on, mostly about herself. I especially liked how she plays Masha's jealousy like a very thin but sharp stiletto. It is dangerously easy to overplay playing a movie star, but Mohn does not come even close to making that mistake so she gets to be the antagonist without becoming the villain. As Spike, Smith is largely required to be eye candy, but he clearly enjoys flaunting what he has in your face (Who knew a reverse strip tease could have its moments?). Spike has a monologue of his own and unfortunately has to contend with a door.


Horvath's Cassandra is a tad demented, as evidenced by her idiosyncratic delivery of her rambling prophecies and the loony look in her eyes, especially when she does the voodoo that she does so well. Then she becomes incredibly droll when it is time for her to deliver the funniest line of the night at Spike's expense. Nina is an aspiring actress, star struck by Masha and unsettled by Spike, but connecting with Vanya. Boots has her big moment when she plays a molecule who has an awful lot to say.


Kevin Seime's impressive set design presents the back patio of this Pennsylvania farm house, wrought of large stones and wooden planks, strategically accented with dashes of red in the form of flowers, seat cushions, and wooden chairs. What little we can see of the farm house's interior is wonderfully detailed for something that is ostensibly off-stage. But then there is even grass growing between the stones on the stairs descending down to the pond, which, it should be pointed out, is essentially where the audience is sitting.

For reasons that will become apparelly apparent--because Kelsie Bigs had to not only come up with costumes but costume costumes for this show--the music that plays is an eclectic collection of Disney covers, most prominently including Louie Armstrong's version of "Whistle While You Work." The play is set in Bucks County, Pennsylvania because that is where Durang lives. There are few things in the script that bind it to the locale, chiefly an inspiring but unattributed quotation from the pen of William Penn.


Walking into this show I was wondering how Durang, who started off writing the likes of "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You" and "The Actor's Nightmare," finally ended up three-plus decades down the road winning the Tony Award for Best Play in 2013. The answer is found in the pair of stunning showcase moments Durang provides for his actors.


You might start off thinking about Chekhov with this play, but when you leave the theater I can assure you the name on your mind is going to be Maggie Smith.