Theatre in Review: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Lincoln Center/Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre)

	Kristine Nielsen, Sigourney Weaver, David Hyde Pierce. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

Christopher Durang's new comedy begins with two of his title characters, the middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia, contemplating the void. It's a sunny day, and their Bucks County home is lovely, but, having wasted most of their adult lives taking care of their ailing parents, they have little to look forward to. Vanya notes that "it's been our cross to bear" that they were saddled with names so suggestive of Russian ennui. Between hurled coffee cups, Sonia, who may or may not be bipolar, adds that it's a good thing they are sitting in the morning room because, "I'm mourning for my life." Then, turning mystical, she recalls that, the night before, "I dreamt I was 52 and not married." "Do you dream in the documentary format?" wonders Vanya.

In addition to their heavy existential burden -- which includes a maid named Cassandra, whose idea of a greeting is to announce, "Fie on you both -- I see doom and destruction swirling around!" -- Vanya and Sonia have to put up with their sister, Masha, a famous film actress who is their only source of income. Masha, who has been in five blockbusters about a sexy serial killer -- and has an equal number of ex-husbands -- blows in for a visit, trailing her muscular boy-toy, Spike. "He was almost cast in Entourage II," she says, marveling at her loved one's brush with near-greatness. And then there's Nina, the aspiring actress from next door, who instantly inspires Masha's jealousy. After one particularly edgy dig at the notably young and attractive Nina, Masha quickly adds, "I'm making a self-aware joke about how competitive I am."

As should be clear by now, it's not just the names in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike that are Chekhovian; Durang has pasted together bits of The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, and yes, Uncle Vanya, scooping up the characters and relocating them to an increasingly unsettling 21st century. Masha announces she intends to sell the house -- on the advice of her personal assistant, a young woman named Hootie-Pie -- sending her siblings into a tailspin. On the other hand, Masha gets as good as she gives. Dressed for a costume party as Snow White, Nina innocently confuses her with Norma Desmond. The next morning, having failed to make a social success, Masha wails, "Several people thought I was a Hummel figurine!"

And so it goes, with Durang's appropriation of the Chekhovian format providing him with an ideal soapbox for his comments about our bound-for-hell-in-a-handbasket world. He also manages to nudge his characters a step or two in the direction of happiness, despite their paralyzing crises. Under Nicholas Martin's perfectly tuned direction, a cast that could be accurately described as the Christopher Durang All-Stars has a holiday with this woebegone bunch. One suspects that Sigourney Weaver knows plenty about the foibles of cinematic divas, and her Masha is a gleeful caricature of celebrity self-love. "How I've missed you," she says to Sonia, breezily bypassing her sister's proffered embrace. She maintains an aura of happy benevolence, even when bullying her siblings into dressing up as two of the Seven Dwarves. And, later, all hope surrendered and devastated by a sleepless night, she makes a delectable entrance clad in a robe, her eyes barely cracked open, her hair resembling a small haystack. As Sonia, Kristine Nielsen is funniest during a fleeting moment of triumph, when, dolled up in sequins and tiara, she offers a perfect, and perfectly wicked, imitation of Maggie Smith; she also pulls off a small marvel of a monologue when, for the first time in her life, a gentleman comes calling (via the telephone). David Hyde Pierce's peerless high-comedy skills are on full display here, whether recalling his parents' community theatre triumphs in The Reluctant Debutante and The Oresteia or during an extended meltdown in which he rails against our warming climate and increasingly debased culture. (Among his more pressing concerns -- including the toxic effects of social media and video games that teach children to shoot prostitutes for fun -- he stops to wonder why anyone would name a virtually event-free television series The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet -- a question that, I suspect, has haunted many a baby boomer for decades.)

The younger generation is well-represented, too, by Genevieve Angelson, who makes a charming Nina, especially when appearing as a molecule in a reading of Vanya's avant-garde play; Billy Magnussen, as the frequently scantily clad Spike, who can also make his shirt pop open on cue; and Shalita Grant, who passes the time discreetly holding voodoo ceremonies when her employers aren't looking.

If you're going to be filled with weltschmerz, it may as well be on David Korins' gorgeous rendering of a flagstone country house surrounded by a lush green lawn. The set has only one drawback: If you're sitting in the top five or six rows of the Newhouse, the cutaway roof structure blocks your view of the actors when they are standing upstage. Otherwise, it is the country house of one's dreams, and it is lit with sun-dappled beauty by Justin Townsend. Emily Rebholz's costumes --especially the fancy-dress getups -- are spot-on, and Mark Bennett's original music and sound design contribute nicely to the mood of unrequited longing.

If at times Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike meanders a little, content to follow a comic thought wherever it goes, relevance be damned -- well, that's the Russian way. As Sonia notes, deflecting Vanya's comment that she is desperately in need of medication, "If everyone took antidepressants, Chekhov would have nothing to write about." Happily, Durang finds plenty to say, most of it compassionate and nearly all of it hilarious, about the sorrows that accrue to us, increasingly, as time goes by. --David Barbour