Theatre in Review: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Golden Theatre)

	Billy Magnussen, Kristine Nielsen, Sigourney Weaver, Genevieve Angelson, David Hyde Pierce. Photo Carol Rosegg

I'm happy to report that Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike has transferred to Broadway with all of its laughter and considerable heart intact. Christopher Durang has crossbred the plots of the major Chekhov plays, planting his characters in 21st-century Bucks County, where they can kvetch hilariously to their heart's content. Vanya and Sonia are middle-aged siblings who, having spent most of their adult lives nursing their ailing parents, now sit in the charmingly appointed farmhouse, watching what's left of their lives pass them by. As Sonia notes, the night before "I dreamt I was 52 and not married." "Do you dream in the documentary format?" wonders Vanya.

Their feckless, melancholy existence is shaken up by the arrival of Masha, a stupendously narcissistic movie star ("I'm making a self-aware joke about how competitive I am"), and her current amusement, Spike, a half-her-age boy toy with a magnificent physique and the intellect of a 12-year-old. (As Masha reverently notes, Spike was almost cast in Entourage II.) The events of the weekend include a costume party with unforeseen repercussions; a reading of Vanya's avant-garde play, which features a cast of molecules; and the alarming news that Masha intends to sell the farmhouse.

This is Durang in top form, aided and abetted by three of his finest interpreters. Sigourney Weaver is a priceless Masha, swanning about the stage in a Snow White outfit and complaining that the rest refuse to don dwarf outfits to complete her look, and also explaining how her plan to star in the great classics was undermined by her success in a series of films titled Sexy Killer. David Hyde Pierce underplays hilariously, especially when recalling his parents' community theatre triumphs in The Reluctant Debutante and The Oresteia, and also making sure that, when Spike starts to perform an impromptu striptease, he has the best seat in the house. Kristine Nielsen is a peerless Sonia, gleefully impersonating Maggie Smith and grumpily responding to her brother's suggestion that she might consider medical help, "If everyone took antidepressants, Chekhov would have had nothing to write about." She also does beautifully by one of the play's finest passages, in which Sonia takes a phone call from an unexpected suitor and faces the notion that, for the first time in her life, someone might actually find her attractive.

As proficient as these three are, they are very nearly overshadowed by Billy Magnussen's almost insanely uninhibited Spike, who never merely exits the set if he can leap off it. In an evening full of comic arias, his reenactment of Spike's audition for Entourage II -- he has a different voice and attitude for every single line - is a small tour de force. There's also lovely support from Genevieve Angelson as the aspiring actress who, among other things, innocently mistakes Masha's Snow White costume for that of Norma Desmond, and Shalita Grant as a voodoo-practicing housekeeper named Cassandra, full of ignored prophecies that have a way of coming horribly true. (As it happens, the characters ignore Cassandra's warning, "Beware Hootie-Pie," at their peril.)

It all unfolds on David Korins' lovingly detailed farmhouse terrace set, a flagstone structure surrounded by a lush green lawn, which is layered with dappled sunlight by Justin Townsend. (The set works better at the Golden than it did at the Mitzi E. Newhouse, where it was sometimes hard to see the characters when they were upstage.) Emily Rebholz's costumes make wickedly accurate note of the characters' differences; the party costumes are especially witty. Who knew that David Hyde Pierce would make such perfect appearance as the dwarf Doc? Mark Bennett's sound design includes some charming opening music, a handful of effects (cars arriving, smartphones), and, for the finale, The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun."

My only reservation about the Broadway transfer is that, overall, the performances have become a bit broader, partly, no doubt, in reaction to being in a larger theatre. Still, one hopes that a sense of discipline can be maintained over what should be a lengthy run. At the performance I attended, Pierce appeared to be in some vocal distress as he launched into Vanya's climactic tirade -- it is really the play's eleven o'clock number -- a sustained attack on the dislocations of the modern world and simultaneously a aean to and takedown of such '50s-era delights as The Ed Sullivan Show and Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Nevertheless, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a marvelously literate comedy by a humorist who knows that that the funniest things in the world are depression and hostility. And, like Chekhov, he loves his characters for all their foolishness and vanity. If his play is a cartoon, it has considerable heart and humanity in addition to its barbed wit.--David Barbour