review: “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike”—an hilarious reflection on the what-ifs in Chekhov, at Berkeley Rep through October 25, 2013
(l to r) Leading Bay Area actor Anthony Fusco (Vanya), award-winning actress Lorri Holt (Masha), and stage and TV actor Mark Junek (Spike) star in Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” at Berkeley Rep through October 25, 2013. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
There are very few Chekhov shows that have the audience busting out in laughter, but that’s exactly what happened last Wednesday at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s regional premiere of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, the Broadway blockbuster from Obie Award-winner Christopher Durang. Richard E.T White, who directed numerous productions at Berkeley Rep between 1984 and 1993, is back at the helm for the staging of this delightfully zany production. I can’t think of a recent Berkeley Rep performance that I’ve enjoyed more. Demand has been so strong that the play has been extended through October 25, 2013.
Durang, the renowned author of rollicking comedies such as Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You (1979) and The Marriage of Bette & Boo (1985), has described his farcical family drama as “Chekhov in a blender,” referring to the fact that he took his characters and themes from the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov but set them in present-day Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he actually resides with his long-time partner. The play draws on characters and themes from Chekhov’s most popular works—Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Seagull, and Cherry Orchard. Durang cleverly combines elements of those stories, asking the “what-if” questions that Chekhov’s characters themselves might have asked about the trajectories of their lives had Chekhov not penned them another way. It’s not essential to have read Chekhov or seen any of these plays but if you have, you’ll get a lot of more of the references. To keep it popping, and in sync with his own signature of outrageous, Durang added loads of great one-liners, a great voodoo pin-stabbing doll scene, crazy storybook costumes, wild impersonations, and boy-toy eye candy.
Beloved Bay Area actors Anthony Fusco and Sharon Lockwood portray Vanya and Sonia, the two terminally melancholic siblings anchoring the production. They got their names from their community college professor parents who were enamored with Chekhov. They dawdle through their days in their family’s peaceful Bucks County farmhouse performing such rituals as morning tea and daily bird watching while bickering like an old married couple.
Lockwood gives a priceless tender and comedic performance as Sonia, the dutiful adoptive spinster sister, who bemoans the fact that life has raced by while she’s has been stuck on the farm caretaking. At least, she’s got her beloved cherry orchard. There are 10 struggling cherry trees way out back which Sonia insists constitute an orchard and Vanya insists don’t. So Chekhovian…and not.
Vanya, a struggling writer who keeps his play hidden in the parlor, is brought to pitch-perfect life by Fusco.
There’s also Cassandra, their belligerent but good-hearted servant who is brought to life by the bright energy and stage presence of Heather Alicia Simms. Cassandra doesn’t cook much but, like her Greek namesake, she’s a psychic whose pronouncements are heeded. She also happens to whip up a mean voodoo doll.
(l to r) Bay Area actors Anthony Fusco (Vanya) and Sharon Lockwood (Sonia) portray siblings in “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” this year’s Tony Award winner for Best Play, at Berkeley rep through October 25, 2013. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com
The whole play transpires in an expansive wood-and-stone home, with gorgeously appointed wicker furnished sunroom by set designer Kent Dorsey, with lighting by Alexander V. Nichols.
The anxiety-ridden question of the moment is how Vanya and Sonia will handle the pending visit of their sister Masha (Lorri Holt), a Hollywood B-movie star, who made her career in the “Sexy Killer” film franchise and who’s been footing all their bills. These middle-aged dependents worry that she’ll sell the house and leave them homeless. When glamorous Masha arrives, it’s in grand style— she’s dressed in sophisticate clothing, is full of interesting conversation (about herself) and is accompanied by her dim-witted hunky young lover, Spike (Mark Junek). Masha is not really there to see Vanya and Sonia but to attend a costume party down the road at Dorothy Parker’s house and to show off.
Masha triggers jealousy and longing in frumpy Sonia. Preening Spike triggers carnal urges in Vanya. Enter Nina (Caroline Kaplan)—the sweet, sincere and very comely neighbor, straight out of The Seagull, who draws Spike’s attention away from Masha and ignites Vanya’s literary passions. In the shadow of Nina’s radiant natural beauty, Masha’s anxieties about aging quickly come to the surface.
As they all prepare their costumes for the party, the play achieves comic brilliance. To ensure that she will steal the show as Snow White, Masha tries to control what everyone else wears, insisting they go as her attendant dwarfs, with the exception of Spike who is to be Prince Charming. Costume designer Beaver Bauer’s Disney Snow White costumes are delightful.
Sonia’s priceless moment of ascension comes when she defies Masha, steps out of her sorry self and dons a sparkly evening gown to channel Maggie Smith, “on her way to claiming an Oscar in California Suite.” And does she shine, so much so that she attracts some long-overdue male interest.
Vanya’s moment comes when Nina gives the group a read-though of his secret play about a molecule…a slow existential boiler whose enactment is rudely interrupted by Spike’s texting. The cell phone incident triggers Vanya’s inspired rant about horrors of the modern technology. It all neatly ties in with Chekhov’s main themes in The Cherry Orchard— the inescapable forward march of time and the arrival of progress into the change-resistant cherry orchard. This full-on comedy, with as much depth as you want to give it, is a wonderful way to celebrate the start of Berkeley Rep 46th season.
Run-Time is 2 hours 45 minutes with one 15 minute intermission.
Creative Team:
Kent Dorsey (scenic designer) has designed sets for a number of Berkeley Rep productions, including The Alchemist, For Better or Worse, Serious Money, The Importance of Being Earnest, Dancing at Lughnasa, Mother Jones, and Blue Window. Beaver Bauer (costume designer) has designed several Berkeley Rep productions: What the Butler Saw, Tartuffe, Blue Window, In Perpetuity Throughout the Universe, Rhinoceros, The House of Blue Leaves, and Menocchio. Alexander V. Nichols (lighting designer) returns to Berkeley Rep for his 26th production. His theatre credits include Berkeley Rep’s production of Wishful Drinking here and on Broadway, Hugh Jackman Back On Broadway, and the off-Broadway productions of Bridge and Tunnel (also at Berkeley Rep), Horizon, In the Wake, Los Big Names, Taking Over, and Through the Night. Composer Rob Milburn and sound designer Michael Bodeen composed music and designed sound for Berkeley Rep’s previous production, No Man’s Land, which moves to Broadway this fall. The stage manager for the production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is Michael Suenkel, Berkeley Rep’s resident production stage manager. Executive producers are Bill Falik and Diana Cohen.
Details: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike has been extended through October 25, 2013 at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street @ Shattuck, Berkeley, CA 94704. Performances are Tues-Fri at 8 PM and Sat at 2 PM and 8 PM and Sun at 2 PM and 7 PM. Tickets: $29 to $89. Discounts: Half-price tickets available for anyone under 30 years of age; $10 discount for students and seniors one hour before curtain.
Parking: Paid parking is readily available at over 5 parking garages as close as one block from the theatre. The Allston Way Garage, 2061 Allston Way, between Milvia and Shattuck, offers $3 parking Tuesday–Friday after 6 PM or all day on Saturday or Sunday when your garage-issued parking ticket is accompanied by a free voucher ticket that is available in the theatre lobby. These new tickets accommodate the newly automated parking garage’s ticket machines and are available in a pile located where the ink stamp used to be.
“People Show 121: The Detective Show”—the UK’s longest-running alternative theater company makes its first Bay Area appearances since 1989, at San Francisco’s Southside Theater through October 5, 2013
Gareth Brierley (left) and Mark Long (right) in “People Show 121: The Detective Show,” at Fort Mason’s Southside Theatre through October 5, 2013. Photo: Rob Kennedy, courtesy The People Show.
Someone’s been murdered. But there’s no body, no weapon, and no motive. An interrogator grills the suspect, whose memory is limited to just three items: he’s a compulsive gambler, he’s in love with an Agatha Christie expert, and he may just be a fictional character in a detective story.
People Show England’s longest-running alternative theater company, makes its only U.S. appearance in the Bay Area — and its first since 1989 — with its award-winning 121st show, a murder mystery called People Show 121: The Detective Show. This clever and quick-paced Agatha Christie-like mystery involves three main actors, all hiding something—Gareth Brierley, Mark Long, and Fiona Creese—who transition into several characters by exchanging various hats and coats. The naturally hilarious Gareth Brierley serves as the rambling narrator and the main suspect in this whodunit. Clues and plot twists are doled out in equal proportion. The intimacy of the Southside Theater at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center makes it feel like the troupe is extending you a personal invitation to pit your wits against theirs to solve the case.
Sam Shepard, Bill Nighy, and generations of UK theater fans agree: the world of alternative theater would be quite different without People Show, the troupe founded in 1966 and now the longest-running alternative theater company in Britain. Shepard says, “Theatre without the People Show would be like music without rock ‘n’ roll.”
Free Wine: The People Show engagement is being produced by Lost Hog Productions, led by Tony Cartlidge of Cartlidge and Browne Winery of St. Helena. Cartlidge, a native of the UK, is a lifelong friend of Mark Long of People Show. Show tickets include unlimited wine at the event.
People Show 121: The Detective Show won the 2012 Herald Archangel Award in Edinburgh.
Running Time: 75 minutes, no intermission
Details: People Show 121: The Detective Show is at Southside Theater, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco. Remaining Performances: Thursday, October 3 at 8 PM and -Saturday, October 5 at 8 PM. Tickets: $39, general seating includes unlimited wine http://peopleshowusa.com/tickets/
ARThound 