Jordan Wright
October 23, 2017
Special to The Alexandria Times
Mario Font as Vanya and Lorraine Bouchard as Masha ~ Photos by: Keith Waters
In playwright Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, characters and themes from Chekhov are resurrected in a Bucks County, PA farmhouse. Sonia (Lorraine Bouchard) and Vanya (Mario Font), have been caretakers to their ailing actor/professor parents for fifteen years and know no other life than their childhood home – a remote farmhouse with a view to their beloved pond and cherry orchard. The two reclusive siblings include Sonia, a melancholy spinster with slim marital prospects and Vanya, who has not worked out his future (nor his sexual identity) either. When the last of their parents dies, the two must confront their unknowable future and reconcile the sacrifices they have made to their parents.
: Marilyn Pifer as Cassandra and Mario Font as Vanya – Photos by: Keith Waters
Their flighty housekeeper, Cassandra (Marilyn Pifer), a self-proclaimed seer fond of reciting grim snippets from Greek tragedies, warns the siblings to beware of many things – especially a character oddly named ‘Hootie Pie’ – who she predicts will upend their comfortable existence. Despite their doubts the siblings admit that some of her forecasts have actually come to pass – others not so much.
The set-up is hilarious and factors in their successful sister, Masha (Carol Preston), a Hollywood film star and five-time married cougar who soon arrives for the weekend with her young studly beau, Spike (John Paul Odle), aka ‘Vlad’, yet another Chekhov reference. Amid much canoodling with Spike, Masha tells them she can no longer continue to underwrite the expenses of maintaining the family home. Throwing a wrench into the evening before it begins, she reveals she has put their house on the market and they must make arrangements to leave. But first she insists they accompany her to a neighbor’s costume party that night at the former home of Dorothy Parker, where they will go as entourage dwarves to her Snow White and Spike’s sexy Prince. She tells them their costumes have been arranged by her assistant, Hootie Pie.
Meanwhile, Spike meets Nina (Hannah-Lee Grothaus), a neighbor’s pretty niece, and Masha’s claws come out. The aging actress’ fierce jealousies and cruel insults to Sonia, leave Vanya to put out the family fires.
: (Back) Carol Preston as Masha, John Paul Odle as Spike, (Front) Hannah-Lee Grothaus as Nina, Mario Font as Vanya, Lorraine Bouchard as Sonia and Marilyn Pifer as Cassandra ~ Photos by: Keith Waters
References to known locations in Bucks County, a writer/theater community within commuting distance of New York City, will delight and amuse those familiar with its history and famous denizens. I got a chuckle from a reference to the New Hope Wawa, the only spot open after 6pm for miles around. (My family frequented that very convenience store for over 50 years as their source for emergency groceries.)
Director Howard Kurtz does his best to pull this lifeless production together, but it never congeals, despite its humorously drawn characters, hilarious one-liners and Vanya’s rousing diatribe on Spike’s addiction to modern technology. “Our lives are all disconnected,” he howls. And though the cast individually have their moments, there is no cohesion between the actors and the sense that everyone is acting in a different play, on varying levels of intensity, undercuts its success. Indeed, the whole does not amount to the sum of its parts.
Through November 11th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com