Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
by Christopher Durang
Billings Gazette Review
Presented with permission by
Dramatists Play Service.
Director: Craig Huisenga
September 12-27, 2014 Roebling Theater
Winner of the 2013 Tony
Award for Best Play! Chekhov meets comedy in a crazy whirlwind
of characters and hilarity.
“Strongest comedy Broadway
has to offer.” The Bottom Line
NOVA Center for the
Performing Arts is excited to present the Montana premiere of
the 2013 Tony Winner for Best Play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha
and Spike by Christopher Durang. This hilarious new comedy will
open NOVA’s 2014-2015 Season, running from September 12 through
September 27.
Durang says he used the plays of Russian
playwright Anton Chekhov as a jumping-off point. You don’t need
to know Chekhov to enjoy Vanya…, but if you do, it is even
funnier. The New York Times said, “There’s something deeply
comforting about a master of antic psycho-comedy, delivering
Chekhov’s lost souls from their eternal misery. Durang plays
with Chekhov like a self-amusing cat toying with a tangled
string.”
The NOVA production features some of Billings’
best actors directed by NOVA Managing Producer Craig Huisenga.
The cast includes Jim McRae as Vanya and Dina Brophy as Sonia, a
brother and sister who stayed at home for 15 years to care for
ailing parents. Rebecca Spring plays their older sister Masha, a
famous actress who aspires to perform the classics on stage but
is notorious for a series of slasher films. Her boy-toy
companion Spike will be played by Christopher Kellison-Decker.
Rounding out the outstanding cast are Lisa Halpin as the
clairvoyant housekeeper, Cassandra, and Lauren Lane as Nina, the
naive, would-be actress who lives next door. When Masha comes
home determined to sell the family estate and make everyone go
to a party in the costumes of her choice, everything changes.
Cast List:
Jim McRae
(Vanya)
Dina Brophy (Sonia)
Rebecca
Winker Spring (Masha)
Chris Kellison-Decker (Spike)
Lisa Halpin
(Cassandra)
Lauren Lane
(Nina)
What’s in a name (or 4)? Chekhov gloom
and modern humor By Jaci Webb
The
insight into relationships is so accurate in “Vanya and Sonia
and Masha and Spike,” it feels like playwright Christopher
Durang has been spying on families for years.
He’s been
reading a lot of Chekhov, too.
The beauty of this show,
the season opener at NOVA Center for the Performing Arts, is
that knowing a bit about Chekhov’s gloomy characters helps you
find the humor. But it’s funny even for those who have never
heard of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.
“Vanya and
Sonia and Masha and Spike” opens Friday in the Roebling Theater
at the NOVA Center for the Performing Arts and runs through
Sept. 27.
The play is fresh, coming off a 2013 Tony Award
for best play, and NOVA is among the first community theaters in
the region to take a run at it. Craig Huisenga directs.
During rehearsal last week, Huisenga couldn’t stop snickering at
the lines, even though he’s heard them all dozens of times.
“The cast and writing are so strong,” Huisenga said. “It’s
some really good stuff. There are no slow moments.”
The
cast includes Jim McRae as Vanya and Dina Brophy as Sonia, a
brother and sister who stayed at home for 15 years to care for
their ailing parents in current-day Bucks County, Pa. Rebecca
Spring plays their older sister Masha, a famous actress who
aspires to perform the classics on stage but is notorious for a
series of slasher films. Her boy-toy companion, Spike, is played
by Christopher Kellison-Decker. Rounding out the cast are Lisa
Halpin as the clairvoyant housekeeper, Cassandra, and Lauren
Lane as Nina, the young would-be actress who lives next door.
The show opens with the endearing Vanya, who is 59, and his
adopted sister, Sonia, 52, lamenting the fact that they have
never lived.
“I’m mourning for my life,” Sonia tells her
brother.
Sonia evokes sympathy just before she starts
smashing coffee cups. Then she’s seen as unhinged and unhappy.
In his downtrodden way, Vanya points out, “It’s been our
burden in life — our parents giving us Chekhov names.”
Especially Vanya, who has suffered through having a woman’s
name. Sonia goes for a lighter moment when she points out that
at least her father “never molested me.”
The family
dynamic changes when Masha returns home because she expects
everything to revolve around her.
“I can’t remember dates
or decades; I just live,” she says.
Masha is determined
to sell the family estate, but before they can discuss it, she
decides they should all go to a costume party with her playing
Snow White and her siblings dressed as the dwarfs.
When
Sonia bucks Masha’s direction and finds a sparkly costume to
wear instead of Dopey’s dunce hat and knickers, the relationship
between the sisters begins to flip.
Durang said he used
the plays of Chekhov as a jumping-off point, then he put the
characters in the blender to see what he could get.
Looks
like this time he spun gold.
Dressed as Snow
White for a costume party, middling actress Masha (Rebecca
Spring) strives to be the center of attention as her irritated
younger siblings, Sonia and Vanya (Brophy and McRae, left) look
on in the NOVA Center staging of “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and
Spike,” a recent Tony Award-winning comedy. Christopher
Kellison-Decker plays Masha’s boyfriend, Spike, while Lauren
Lane plays aspiring actress Nina.
LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff
Lisa Halpin,
center, plays Cassandra, the clairvoyant housekeeper for gloomy
siblings Vanya (Jim McRae) and Sonia (Dina Brophy) in the NOVA
Center production of the comedy “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and
Spike.” LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff
Cast members Rebecca Spring, left, Jim
McRae and Dina Brophy were featured in 2014 in NOVA Center’s
production of the 2013 Tony-winning comedy “Vanya and Sonia and
Masha and Spike.” LARRY MAYER/Gazette Staff
