Review: VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE at Revolution Stage Company

Christopher Durang’s plays are not what you’d call “normal.” They have outrageous characters like Sister Mary Ignacious in Sister Ignacious Explains It All, or Vanya, Sonia, Sasha and Spike, and Cassandra, the prescient maid in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Durang won a 2013 Tony for this one. 

The through-line action of the play revolves around whether Masha is going to sell the house she inherited, and displace her siblings, Vanya and Sonia, who lived there and cared for their now deceased parents. Masha not only got the house, but she is also a big movie star, with a younger boyfriend - flavor of the month, Spike. She has no need for that house, or so she thinks. On the other side of the aisle is Vanya, a sorta-closeted gay man, and their adopted sister, Sonia, the reveal of which is the first belly laugh in the play. Rest assured, there are plenty more coming. Durang is a master of absurdity with an underlying message that sometimes gets missed in all the wackiness.

We open with Vanya (Keith Hoffman) in his robe sipping a cup of coffee, when Sonia (Rebecca McWilliams) enters with another cup of coffee for him, and the bickering begins until the cleaning lady, Cassandra (Heather Joy) shows up portending doom. This is not unusual for Cassandra, who is often predicting minor catastrophes in the family. 

Sonia lets it slip that their sister Masha (Tiffani LoBeu) is coming to visit, and Cassandra warns of a Trojan horse coming with her. This translates to Spike (Ronny Borrelli) her new paramour, who carries Trojans in his back pocket. She also warns of impending doom at someone or something called “Hootie Pie”.

Sasha shows up in all of her B movie glamour and invites her family to join her at a neighbor’s costume party. Masha is going as Snow White, and has brought a prince’s costume for Spike, with costumes for Vanya and Sonia as her dwarves. 

Sonia does not want to be a dwarf, and finds her own costume, leaving Masha with one dwarf, until Spike invites the pretty, and young neighbor girl to come to the party with them much to Masha’s chagrin. Hilarity ensues.

Vanya, in Hoffman’s hands is fairly stoic, life is what it is and had it not been for Spike and Masha’s interruption the day would be like any other. Coffee, the blue heron they’re waiting to see, and a once a week visit from wacky Cassandra, the maid. Life is standing still for Vanya and Sonia. This visit changes everything.

McWilliams Sonia is a terrific characterization. Sonia is clearly an air sign -  switching seamlessly between being content and hating her life in a nanosecond. Her transformation into who she wants to be for this party and in life is a very studied and fun watch. Her performance was so watchable and interesting, I could barely take my eyes away from her and her performance. Worth it for this alone, but there is more to like. 

Cassandra is written to be over-the-top, and Joy does that in spades. She excels at big characters on the stage, and although this is a good performance, and Joy stays true to the wacky, I honestly think every performance I peeped of this character plays it as described, so I’d love to have seen this character as the forebearer of doom to match the sound and light effects when prophesying aka a dark and foreboding trance-like state as opposed to the ebullient performance we got. Still, Joy, as always, is fun to watch, she brought the house down in Company however her performance is in line with past performances. Joy is a very creative and joyful performer, I just would have liked to see some of that creativity taken in a new direction by the director, which I am not, so it's just my opinion. Still a good performance, I'd just like to see her stretch. 

LoBeu, as Masha, fits the bill nicely as the beautiful aging movie star. Well, that is actually a stretch - her roles were in b-list action films, but she made some bank, and now is in search of her eternal youth by having a young boyfriend, as well as choosing a youthful character to portray at the costume party. Nice work by LoBeu.

Wilson plays the lovely neighbor girl, Nina, who wants to be an actress like Masha. She has been hoping to meet her in the three days she is visiting Bucks County, PA. So enamored is she that she is willing to do whatever Masha asks. Spike seems to have an interest in her too, which vexes Masha to no end. 

I have seen Borrelli before, and very much enjoyed his work as various gay men in another play. I was looking forward to seeing him here, but I honestly think he was miscast. He’s definitely having fun on stage though, and that is always a deligh to watch. I look forward to seeing him again.

Biship-Gillespie does a good job directing, although a little character work with the actors might have taken this to a higher level, in my opinion, but I am notoriously hard to please. It's my cross to bare, and yours to ignore.

All in all there were good production values with Joyanne Tracy’s simple but elegant set design, built by Miguel Lauro. I loved the house in the distance that Mariah Pryor’s lighting and her and Tracy's joint work on projections nailed. And Jana Bauman’s dwarf costumes were hilarious.

Opening nights can be a bear, with nerves riding high. There was a little of this from supporting cast members, but I’m sure it smoothed out by the second performance.

It’s nice to see a play that, for as long as I’ve been in Palm Springs, has not been produced here (to my knowledge). It’s funny, decidedly different, and a palate cleanser from Revolution’s big musical productions. That is not a slight at all. Their musicals are generally very well received, and well performed. But this production definitely felt fresh, even though the play was written in the late 1980s. Nice choice. 

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