Who among us hasn’t lamented that life might be passing us by?
Who hasn’t – at some point – worried, ‘Am I wasting my life?”
These fears – which intensify as the years pass – shape the psychological landscape that playwright Christopher Durang mines with humour and compassion in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, directed by Carmen Osahar, with Assistant Director Matthew Murrell, and now playing at Alumnae Theatre.
The company’s production of the 2012 Tony-Award winning comedy is an entertaining romp that boasts a talented ensemble of actors and an attractive and functional set by Julian Mulock. In this inflationary winter of our discontent, the production provides affordable, high-quality entertainment in a friendly venue.
Vanya (a superbly understated Paul Cotton) lives with his adopted sister Sonia (played as a mercurial malcontent by Sandi Globerman) in their family home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Here, just up the road from where writer Dorothy Parker once lived, the pair mourn their humdrum lives of lost dreams and missed opportunities. We learn that they have sacrificed their lives to take care of their now-dead parents, while sister Masha (Elizabeth Friesen) has built a career as a Hollywood movie star. Her fame and string of hits have enabled her to fund the upkeep of the family home where Vanya and Sonia still live. The final member of the household is doomsday prophet-cum-cleaning lady Cassandra (a dynamic Cora Kennedy), who is a commotion of wild eyes, flailing arms and grim prediction.
The in-story origin of the siblings’ Chekhovian names is that their professor parents were active in community theatre. While the play isn’t a parody of the plays of Anton Chekhov, the names sensitize us right away to the play’s myriad echoes of plots, characters and scenes from his plays.
The action begins when Masha swoops in to attend a costume party at the Dorothy Parker house. After five broken marriages, she has taken up with Spike (Lucas Blakely), a young and deliberately un-Chekhovian boy-toy. This swaggering want-to-be actor’s claim to fame is that he almost landed a specific TV role. While swimming in the pond on the property, he runs into a young aspiring actress named Nina, who is an explicit echo of Chekhov’s The Seagull. This group prepare for and attend the party – launching a weekend of one-upmanship and dysfunction. Amidst all the talky bickering, Masha drops the bombshell that – in an echo of the plot of Uncle Vanya – she is selling the house out from under Vanya and Sonia, who have no income and no place to go.
Yes, these are literary echoes and refractions. But they are also rich characters with recognizable foibles and insecurities. And though Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is very much an ensemble piece, each actor gets a crack at a juicy monologue exploring their particular inner turmoil – and showcasing their acting chops. Cotton’s, which marks the climax of the drama, is particularly memorable. In it, his affecting, understated performance moves from a simmer to a boil by the time the self-absorbed Spike dares to text during a reading of Vanya’s play (another echo of The Seagull). “We used to lick postage stamps,” Vanya rails, lamenting the loss of pedestrian, simple processes and collective experiences to the distracted, egotistical isolation that Spike’s texting represents.
This theme of disconnection will strike a strong chord with post-COVID audiences at this time when we are still re-acclimatizing to public space, after years of our own distracted isolation and loneliness. So, too, will the related theme of re-evaluating our individual and collective priorities and paths – whether we identify more with the fractious middle-aged siblings who feel like their lives are passing them by, or the younger characters who see new possibilities unfurling ahead of them.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike offers laughs, rich character depths, and meaty themes to ponder. And as always, Alumnae Theatre offers a glimpse of young actors to watch for. Up-and-comers Blakely and Coskun shine in their respective younger generation roles and show tremendous promise. Catch Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike until February 4, 2023. Reserve tickets at alumnaetheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2023
