The Rep’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike tries to juice Chekhov
Anton Chekhov and Christopher Durang make an odd couple. Despite Chekhov’s insistence that many of his melancholic plays were comedies (who could forget that rollicking farce Three Sisters?), it’s hard to imagine his characters riffing in Durang’s hyper-real absurdism.
With mixed results, though, the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s production of Durang’s 2012 play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, asks us to do exactly that.
As its title suggests, Durang’s script is packed with Chekhov in-jokes. The three adult siblings, Vanya, Sonia and Masha, are modern analogues for famous Chekhov characters. (Their names are, it is explained, the result of professor parents with a fondness for community theater.) Jobless Vanya and Sonia had remained at home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to care for their parents (now deceased); Masha skipped town to pursue a successful career as a film actress.
The play begins with a classic dramatic intrusion: Masha’s return for a visit with Spike, her May-December man candy. And, in an Uncle Vanya–aping twist, she intends to sell the house.
Chekhov fans can feel clever tallying up the references, but Durang’s homage runs deeper than allusions. Many lines sound ghostwritten by Chekhov himself, tapping into his dreamy cadences. It’s impressive literary mimicry, even if it doesn’t always serve the needs of the comedy. The opening scene feels tonally uneven, with cast and script haggling over the stylistic melding. After that, the actors settle into Durang’s winking, sometimes heavily layered dialogue.
Strong performances and smart direction by Eric Rosen keep the energy high. Tony nominee Barbara Walsh offers a dynamic portrayal of Sonia, the adopted sister prone to self-pitying tantrums and morose proclamations. (Waxing fondly on their father: “He never molested me.”) Durang affords Sonia perhaps the most growth over the course of the play, and Walsh’s Act 2 performance touches us with moments of generosity and sincerity. Tom Aulino channels a gentler Wallace Shawn as Vanya, an aspiring playwright who holds his neuroses close to the vest. Mary Beth Fisher is electric as Masha, one of the show’s flashiest roles. Masha may be vain and petty but she’s also self-aware, and Fisher lets us glimpse those insecurities in a carefully controlled, quietly intense performance.
The nonfamily roles, inhabited by three veteran Kansas City actors, are no less memorable. Vanessa Severo’s comedic timing is on full display as Cassandra, the loony cleaning lady who, like her ancient Greek namesake, sees grave portents everywhere. Severo earns some of the show’s biggest laughs with explosive prophecies that mix Oresteia plot points with Beatles’ lyrics.
Zachary Andrews is appropriately exhausting as the athletic young Spike, a hunky actor whose greatest triumph was an audition for an Entourage sequel. He finds a temporary ally in the sweet young Nina (Emily Peterson), an aspiring actress from next door, but loses her respect with one too many peacock moments. “He’s so attractive,” Nina quips. “Except for his personality, of course.”
Donald Eastman’s off-kilter set echoes the family dysfunction in a beautiful old house starting to show its age: dark wood and sunny porches marred by dirty windows and fraying rugs. Victor En Yu Tan’s natural lights shift subtly as dawn breaks over the backyard pond. Costume designer Melissa Torchia has room to play, thanks to an offstage costume party, Durang’s excuse to force his characters into silly Snow White garb. (Torchia ups the comedic ante with dazzling dresses and Ugg boots for the dwarves.)
The Rep’s royal treatment highlights the humor in a script at turns absurd, acerbic and bighearted. But Durang’s pastiche of styles and tones becomes unwieldy at times. When Spike texts through a reading of Vanya’s new play, Vanya cracks, unleashing a blistering rant about technology and the younger generation. Aulino powers through Vanya’s confused mash of nostalgia and impotent rage, but the speech loses steam (and our attention) as Durang heaps on too many worn-out complaints about South Park, Facebook and Lindsay Lohan.
And the play’s final scene drags on too long, as Durang attempts to knit together competing elements and fire a militia’s worth of Chekhovian guns. But don’t blame the Rep or Rosen or a cast able to maintain momentum even as the script puts on the brakes. Blame Durang — or join him in blaming my measly millennial attention span.
