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| Jodi Stevens and Christopher DeRosa. Photo by Joe Landry |
Take a good helping of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters and Uncle
Vanya and mix in some contemporary soap opera clichés, a dash of TV sitcoms
and Disney’s Snow White and what do
you get? Well, you get Vanya and Sonia
and Masha and Spike, the comedy by Christopher Durang that won both the
Tony and the Outer Critics Circle awards for best play and is now playing at
MTC Mainstage in Norwalk .
So, should you rush out and buy the complete works of Chekhov so you can
appreciate the play? Not necessary. You may miss some of the in-jokes, but
there’s enough there that has nothing to do with the Chekhovian oeuvre to
satisfy the most ardent Russophobe. Whether you will be entranced and intrigued
remains to be seen, for the production, as directed by Pamela Hill, is somewhat
uneven – there are many moments when it comes to life and entrances, and there are
many moments when things just seem to drag.
The situation, drawn from several
of Chekhov’s plays, finds Sonia (Cynthia Hannah) and her brother, Vanya (Jim
Schilling), living a rather dull, secluded life in their Bucks
County home (so far away from Moscow !). Their primary
contact with the outside world consists of visits by Cassandra (Katie Sparer),
a cleaning lady given to making oracular pronouncements (hence the name). Their
quotidian existence is disrupted by the arrival of their sister, Masha (Jodie
Stevens), a much-married star of stage and screen, and her latest boy-toy,
Spike (Christopher DeRosa). It seems that Masha has been supporting her
siblings for many years and, given her flagging career, is eager to sell the
house, which includes a stand of cherry trees. Into the mix comes Nina (Carissa
Massaro), an erstwhile actress who is visiting the next-door neighbors. Spike
is young and attractive; Nina is young and vivacious. Masha immediately becomes
jealous.
The obligatory exposition early in
the first act is delivered by Vanya and Sonia, and it is delivered at a snail’s
pace. Yes, the characters they are playing lead humdrum lives; the problem is
they deliver their lines in a somewhat humdrum manner. There’s little or no
life. Then Cassandra bursts on the scene as if she is one of the weird sisters
in Macbeth on LSD. Over-the-top from
her first entrance, Sparer really has no where to go with her character.
Enter Stevens as Masha, with Spike
in tow, and the production suddenly comes into sharper focus. She is the
quintessential bitch goddess, and Stevens pulls this off with a great deal of
style, flare and, well, bitchiness. For the rest of the evening, she will
singlehandedly, with two exceptions, drive the production.
The exceptions occur in the second
act. The first is Hannah’s extended monologue when he character, Sonia, is on
the phone with a man she met at a costume party the previous evening. He is
asking her out on a date. She is flummoxed, she is unsure, she doesn’t know how
to react, other than to admit that the Maggie Smith accent she used at the
party is not really her’s. It’s a subtle, deft piece of acting, one that
requires she convey what her gentleman caller is saying even though we never
hear his voice.
The second exception occurs fairly
late in the second act when Nina reads from a play Vanya has written. Massaro
plays a molecule, and she is an absolute delight as she spins, leaps and
conveys subtle and not-so-subtle molecular emotions.
Perhaps the role with the biggest
challenge is that of Spike, for, as written, he is little more than a somewhat
witless piece of well-muscled meat. DeRosa poses, preens, flexes and grins a
lot. Playwright Durang hasn’t given Spike much to work with, but DeRosa does
what he can to give dimension to what is essentially a cardboard
character.
And then we get to what might be
considered the climax of the play, which consists of a monologue by Vanya after
he sees Spike on his cell phone while Nina is performing Vanya’s play. It’s a
“those were the days” set-piece, and it should convey all of the anger, fear
and frustration that Vanya has repressed. Alas, it doesn’t. It’s delivered
almost in a monotone, sans brio.
Though the rhythm of the production
is uneven, Hill has done a fine job blocking the actors in a venue that is
essentially a black box with thrust stage. Yes, it’s inevitable that some lines
are delivered with the actors’ backs to part of the audience, but Hill shows a
good sense of how to use this space, especially in the play-within-a-play
sequence in the second act, for she positions her actors so that we are focused
on the characters we are supposed to be focused on.
In all, Vanya is an enjoyable evening of theater that needs just a bit more
juice.
Vanya
runs through March 13. For tickets or more information call 203-454-3883 or go
to www.musictheatreofct.com
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