AISLE SAY Philadelphia

VANYA & SONIA & MASHA & SPIKE

by Christopher Durang
Directed by Sheryl Kaller
Bucks County Playhouse, 70 South Main Street, New Hope, PA
Ended August 10, 2014
For Bucks County Tickets call: 215-862-2121
www.bcptheater.org

Reviewed by Claudia Perry

Celebrating their 75th Anniversary Season, Bucks County Playhouse continues its mission under the direction of Alexander Fraser and Robyn Goodman to re-establish ”the Playhouse in the national theatrical landscape and to stimulate, support, inspire and celebrate the performing arts.” The Playhouse’s second offering this season which will run through August 10th is the Broadway hit, Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, by Bucks County’s own, Christopher Durang. Mr. Durang’s play won a Tony Award for Best Play, a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play and an Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding new Broadway Play in 2013. He has won Obie Awards for “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You”, “The Marriage of Bette and Boo” and “Betty’s Summer Vacation”. His “Miss Witherspoon” was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979. To say the least, he is one of our most popular, celebrated and beloved playwrights. That being said, writing a play and acting in a play are two entirely distinct and different disciplines. They both require enormous concentration, dedication, perspiration and talent. If you are an author and an actor and want to appear in one of your own works, after you write the play you have to learn it. You don’t just automatically “know it”, even though it came out of your wonderfully creative brain. So it is unfortunate that Mr. Durang appears as Vanya in this delightfully, side-splittingly funny, sweet, peach of a play because he is the only weak link in this very strong cast.

Deidre Madigan has a leg up on the rest of the cast having already played the role of Sonia in the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production of the play. Perhaps it explains why she is simply stunning. Her Maggie Smith imitation is spot on and her delivery in the poignant parts of the play are heartbreaking. Movie star thin and glamorous, Marilu Henner is adorable as the frazzled, narcissistic Masha. Her natural charisma and energy feed into her character’s neediness and cougar tendencies. Jimmy Mason is extremely funny as Spike, Masha’s young, sexy, meathead of a boyfriend. Mahira Kakkar is completely wacky as Cassandra, the psychic, fortune-telling housekeeper. And Clia Alsip is delightful as the ingénue neighbor, Nina.

Since its renovation, the Playhouse now sports two bars – one in front of the theatre and one on the side overlooking the canal. And on a lovely, summer evening you simply can’t beat the view. If you’ve never seen one of Christopher Durang’s outrageously funny plays – this would be the one to see as despite its actorial flaws it is still enormously entertaining

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