Review: EPAC Shines With VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

It's often said that life is a lot like a Chekhov play. One hopes not - there's a bit much depression there and a tendency to off oneself inelegantly and unnecessarily. On the other hand, it's much more like the Broadway comedy that references Chekhov, VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE. (Spike? Well, yes.) Featuring three leads named for Chekhov characters, one of whom, Vanya, wants to improve on Konstantin's interpretive play within Chekhov's THE SEAGULL, it tells us that life is, in fact, very much like itself, with some people thinking they've never lived, and others thinking they've lived too much - really, we see, some people simply have more excitement than others, and excitement easily becomes too much. The 2012 Tony-winning play is currently on stage at Ephrata Performing Arts Center, directed by Pat Kautter, and it's a delight.

Playwright and actor Christopher Durang, who lives in Bucks County, right here in Pennsylvania, set the piece in Bucks County in an area not quite as busy as New Hope, where Vanya (Ed Fernandez) and sister Sonia (Sharon Mellinger), both eternally single, have always lived in their late parents' house, having cared for their parents until they died. Their sister Masha (Cynthia Charles) left home and achieved fame and glory, and some serious money, in film (much of it atrocious, apparently), though she's always dreamed of being a Serious Stage Actress, which seems to fit her over-the-top personality. At a costume party she's mistaken for Norma Desmond, Gloria Swanson's part in SUNSET BOULEVARD, which fits Masha perfectly, though she's dressed as Disney's Snow White. Refusing to admit she's aging, prone to histrionics and younger men, she doesn't quite see that she's becoming ludicrous in her aping of herself.

In the mix is Brian Viera as Spike, Masha's toyboy du jour, who is clearly (and almost devastatingly) not as into Masha as she's into him. There's also Nina (Jennifer Amentt), neighbor and budding classical actress longing to put on Vanya's play, and, to the audience's eternal joy, the housekeeper Cassandra (Blessing Robinson), who's nearly as psychic as her classical namesake and far funnier.

Fernandez and Mellinger play a pair of older, constantly-together siblings with major passive-aggressive tendencies toward each other, best displayed with Mellinger's sharp humor (and Durang's cutting wit) when she boils over more than their morning coffee and cups are destroyed in the process. Once you see Mellinger's Sonia in action, you know her, or many women like her. She's nearly archetypal, the frustrated woman who thinks she's had no life; she's certainly present in Chekhov's plays as well as in our own lives. Fernandez' Vanya seems mostly mellow with a bit of an edge when provoked, until the climactic moment in Act 2 when he explodes at the rude, clueless, and mentally vacant Spike in one of the best-written long monologues in years. Fernandez is nothing short of brilliant in his delivery of Vanya's diatribe against the modern fashions of ignorance and of "multitasking" rather than paying attention to things around us; it's one of the very best things he's done recently.

Charles' Masha is delicious, as she plays an actress who's turned her entire life into overacted scenes - her Masha's almost a female William Shatner, chewing scenery, declaiming wildly, and evaluating every gesture for its theatrical emphasis. Her siblings envy her having a life, but she doesn't really have one - she has turned every moment of her life into a theatrical event, false in nature and presentation, but calculated for effect. While her siblings think they've never lived, she's forgotten how to live; she merely acts.

Amentt's Nina is youth devoid of affectation - Masha hates that, as well as Nina's natural beauty - and waiting to live a life. While Vanya and Sonia dislike Spike, she's the first one to see completely through him as a waste of perfectly good carbon compounds. She's thrilled by Masha's acting talent, enthused by Vanya's writing skills, warmed by Sonia's gentleness, and somewhere between amused and annoyed by Spike's vapidity. If she's guilty of anything, she's youth that takes itself a bit too seriously. Nina immediately sees Vanya as her own "Uncle Vanya," a guide and advisor superior to her own family members, which allows Vanya to bloom again. He may not have lived an exciting life, but he's accumulated wisdom that Nina enables him to use.

And thanks to the costume party that Masha and her siblings attend - a disaster for Masha, mistaken for Norma Desmond, but a victory for Sonia, who discovers her own ability to relate to other people and to be liked for herself - there are some moments that it hurts too hard to keep laughing, but it's impossible to stop doing it.

But by far the funniest thing in a series of funny incidents over a weekend in the Pennsylvania countryside is Cassandra, the psychic maid. Beginning with her warning to Vanya and Sonia to "beware of Hootie Pie" (who turns out to be Masha's double-dealing personal assistant), to her bewilderment at Spike, to her intensely comic voodoo ritual to prevent Masha from selling the house, every moment that Blessing Robinson is on stage is a treat for the audience. Robinson perfectly inhabits the part of the crazy wild woman who turns out to be absolutely right in all of her calls of what will happen, and she is completely, thoroughly, delightful.

Being a comedy, all's well that ends well, and the siblings finally discover ways to show respect for each other. They just should have known to beware of Hootie Pie.

This reviewer has seen professional productions of VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE, including one with playwright Durang playing Vanya himself. None of them were superior to this production. Kautter has the pacing down exactly, and she's cast the show perfectly. That several of the cast are or have been professional performers should be very apparent to the audience during the show. This show is one of the best treats in the area right now.

Through June 18 at EPAC. Call 717-733-7966 for tickets and information.

To post a comment, you must register and login.