SL+Vanya+and+Sonia+and+Masha+and+Spike+Critique 

Jameson Lindsey Theatre 2000 Dr. Farley Richmond “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” Critique “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” is written by Christopher Durang and made its first off-Broadway appearance in 2012. It began to run on Broadway in 2013 and continued until its 201th performance. It received six nominations at the 67th Tony Awards and won for Best Play. The play tells the story of three siblings within a dysfunctional family who are all discontent with their lives. Vanya, a middle-aged gay man, and his middle-aged adopted sister, Sonia, live in their parent’s house. Both of their parents passed away from old age but we learn that they were theatre fanatics who named their children after characters from plays written by Anton Chekhov. While Vanya and Sonia stayed to take care of their aging parents, Masha, the eldest sister, was off “gallivanting” and became a successful movie star. Masha is the sole provider of income that helped pay for the house and the parent’s medical expenses. All three siblings are unsatisfied with their current lives. Sonia is the most open about her depression and openly discusses her sense of insignificance, declaring that she “blends in with the furniture”. The play brings their discontents to light and, in the end, these three siblings turn to their family ties to realize the fulfillment they’ve always craved. My first impression of the play came from the intricate set that was displayed. It consisted of an exit (presumably to the kitchen), a stairwell that led to out-of-sight upstairs bedrooms, and a fireplace on top of a wooden raised platform place up-stage. The downstage set was on ground level with an exit leading outside towards the backyard pond, a central living room (complete with a couch, rocking chair, and coffee table), and a window on stage right. The play is carried out in only this solitary set. The setting is said to be Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in a modern farmhouse. The details of furnishings and decorations were incredible. The scenic designer, Eric Chamness, did a wonderful job creating the feel of a worn, old farmhouse. The walls were beige and pale green and in some places the paint was thinning and peeling. The fire place looked like real, eroded stone complete with dark soot rings spreading around the fire pit to look as if it had been used quite frequently in colder weather. The furnishings like the couch and small dining table looked aged, with worn fabrics and distressed woods. The lighting fixtures were a rustic chandelier, two antique boxed lights above the fireplace, and a small lamp downstage left. The rest of the set was filled with aged nick-nacks and sepia/black-and-white photographs. Chamness did an incredible job creating an environment that captured the feel of an old, cozy house that was left untouched/unchanged after the parents had died. The set was an excellent contrast to the mood created by the actors and their words/actions. The sadness of the siblings and their dysfunctional actions/reactions (such as Sonia breaking two coffee mugs out of anger) contradict the calming, warm feel of their surroundings. It brings up the image of how appearances can be deceiving with regards to the “perfect” family. The idea that none of the decorations within the house have changed since the death of the parents emphasizes Vanya and Sonia’s stagnant lifestyles and their dislike of drastic changes. With such an intricate set, I expected more attention to be brought to the details or the props to be interreacted with more. However, the only part of the set that was fully utilized was the central couch and chair with occasionally the house keeper dusting the side furnishings. The fireplace was never interreacted with despite it being such a focal piece. The kitchen table was occasionally used by Masha but never used by any of the other characters. The most interaction with the set occurred when Vanya, Sonia, and Nina moved the furniture to different locations to perform Vanya’s play. This was unfortunate because the only time furniture was interacted with was when they were disrupting the calm and flow of the room. Perhaps my favorite part of the play was the lighting and sound/music. In the beginning of the play, Vanya walks out with coffee in hand to enjoy presumably a beautiful morning sunrise. To create this effect, a gobo light was used to project an image of the morning sun shining through leaves outside the window. The shadows of the “leaves” create patches of light that shine on the quiet living room that adeptly create that peaceful, hopeful feeling that comes with an early morning sunrise. To accompany the lighting, the sounds of birds softly chirping can be heard, which adds more emphasis on Vanya’s peaceful reflection of the morning. This quiet time, of course, doesn’t last long as Sonia soon enters and starts an argument with Vanya that ends with her smashing two coffee mugs against the wall. As the play progresses, the lighting gradually becomes brighter to allude to the morning light shifting into afternoon light. The rest of the scenes are carried out in moderate, soft lighting which emphasize the age of the house; the only source of light that the siblings have are the chandelier, the two box lights, and the small lamp. If brighter light had been used, it would have contradicted the portrayed age of old house. The light sources within the house are old and inadequate so the light designer had to create the effect of muted sunshine streaming through the windows as the family’s source of light during the day. In the beginning of Act II, it is in the evening after the cohort returns from the costume party and the audience first sees two cones of lights shining from upstage left that is assumed to be a car approaching. The “car” lights start off dim, grow as the car moves closer to the house, and are abruptly shut off. This lighting effect was incredibly realistic and the sound effect of tires crunching over gravel only emphasized this skillful execution even more. In the final scene, the three siblings have come to terms with their lives and are now “hopeful” about their futures within the house that brought them together in the first place. As they contently sit side-by-side on the couch, they listen to the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” as the lights slowly dim around them. The last thing the audience sees is the silhouettes of the siblings outlined by soft yellow glow. This fit perfectly with the soft lyrics that tell of brighter times coming. The three siblings are at the center of each other’s universe and are partaking in each other’s new-found hope and contentment. The lighting highlights this fact as they appear to be one single being surrounded by shared lighting. I thought Dylan Whitefield (light designer) and Anthony Gagliardi (sound designer) did an excellent job keeping the importance of the themes in mind with their work and coordinated their talents very well. The script for this play was extraordinarily eclectic and contained many references and subtexts. It was sometimes very difficult to catch each hidden meaning and play-on-words. I am sure I missed many throughout the play and I’d have to see the play multiple times before being able to catch them all. Durang’s script is primarily based around the writing of Anton Chekhov, a popular late 19th century Russian playwright who was well known for his short, fictional stories and tragedies. Like Chekhov, Durang grew up in a dysfunctional household that struggled to remain stable and together. Durang experienced depression at a young age but he recovered to use his newly acquired mindset to write plays. Durang related to Chekhov and his plays on many levels and it clearly influenced his career in theatre. Using Chekhov’s similar themes, Durang wrote this play with the idea of the importance of family bonds and living life every day with hope for the future. The characters of Masha and Nina both come from “The Seagull” written by Chekhov in which Nina is also an aspiring actress and Masha is a powerhouse. Vanya and Sonia are characters from Chekhov’s play “Uncle Vanya”. The storyline of this play follows closely with the story of “Uncle Vanya” in which a character attempts to sell the estate in which some of his relatives reside. This creates conflict which is fueled further by the presence of the homeowner’s new, very young lover (Masha’s lover, Spike, in this case). Durang’s script does a fantastic job of using Chekhov’s aged plays and creating a new, fresh take on the same themes/concepts that modern audiences can relate to and understand. This play is also very humorous which is very different from Chekhov’s darker tragedies. With this contrast, Durang is again able to break free of Chekhov’s tragedies’ constraints to create a completely new tone and outlook on the same themes. Vanya and Sonia’s misery is clearly identified by the audience. However, the bluntness and almost dead-pan humor of the two siblings allows the audience to laugh at their pain and not take their depression so seriously. Sonia continues to say self-doubting things such as “I need a life” in the oddest situations and Vanya looks completely ridiculous in his Doc costume (which is a very happy animated character portrayed by Disney). The contradiction of the script and the atmosphere/time they are executed in create ironic humor that the audience enjoys. I did notice a few areas in the script that left me somewhat confused. At the plot of the play, Vanya goes on a very long and angry monologue about how current generations do not have shared experiences anymore and that we are ruining wholesome past times. He gives extremely specific examples such as “licking postage note” or the demise of child celebrity Lindsay Lohan. While I suspect these references were thrown into his monologue for comedic relief, I was uncertain about the purpose of this monologue within the play. While I understood the monologue’s intent was to inform the audience that generations are turning towards solitude and away from genuine relationships (such as strong family bonds), it seemed to be a random theme that didn’t connect well with the rest of the play in my opinion. The theme of the monologue was that change is bad; Vanya doesn’t like change. But in the end, the characters within the play change. Sonia becomes self-aware of her potential in society and has a much more positive outlook on her life. Vanya finally opens up and allows everyone to hear his play he’s been writing and becomes excited for others to partake in his work. Before this moment in the play, Vanya was very reserved and quiet. Masha realizes her relationship with Spike is a complete fraud and she only needs the love of her family to be content. These are incredibly drastic changes that occur in a day’s time. Vanya’s monologue directly contracted the good change that was brought about within this family. I think if Durang had written this monologue to be more about the futility of today’s relationships and how easy they can be broken by trivial things such as money, jealousy, or fame, Vanya’s rant would have made much more sense and connected more with current audiences. Instead, the monologue discussed his disgust with social media and this generation’s complete disregard for shared experiences. Another theme I thought was very significant and skillfully developed by Durang was the blue heron. Chekhov made many references to birds throughout his works. Durang kept this theme by mentioning several birds throughout the play, including the several times Sonia calls herself a “wild turkey” which is play on words from Chekhov’s “The Seagull”. But the most important bird was the blue heron who according to the siblings would wade in the pond behind their house every morning. In the very beginning of the play, Vanya and Sonia comment on the heron’s absence. The bird was clearly something that the siblings looked forward to watching every morning. It was something they hoped for as they drank coffee together. We soon find out after this observance of the bird’s absence that Masha will be making a visit to the house much to Vanya and Sonia’s annoyance. In conjunction with the absence of the heron and the news of their tiresome sister visiting, the siblings take on an even more hopeless, depressed persona. At the end of the play, as conflicts between the family have been resolved at last, the siblings again comment on the blue heron’s absence. This time however, the siblings are not discontent and hopeless; they are rejuvenated in their family bonds and the positivity that the future may bring. The blue heron symbolizes hope and self-determinism. The siblings no longer have the blue heron to hope for every morning now that they have the aspirations and desire to hope for themselves. They now look forward to the pleasantries and gifts of life. The absence of the blue heron at the end of the play tells the audience that the family maybe dysfunctional, but they have each other to depend on and they’re own lives they now hope the best for. There were numerous other cases of small details that held a grand meaning in this play. It’s incredible how many I noticed and digested without even realizing I was doing it. I was well entertained and only noticed a few minor grievances that were very easy to look past. It was humorous and sometimes a tad bawdy, but it was also a touching story of family bonds and hopefulness for what life can hold.