Vanya and Sonia and Masha(!) and Spike(!)

L to R: Anthony Fusco, Caroline Kaplan, Mark Junek and Lorri Holt. Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com

One of the best suggestions I ever took was to take an acting class in order to learn the mechanics of what actors really do. It turned out to be an education in more ways than one, especially on the day when eight pairs of students had to perform the same page of dialogue from Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park. I had never seen the play, nor the movie, but my familiarity with the author gave me an idea of how the scene should probably go. Or so I thought. The instructor gave us no rules or guidelines beyond the directive "learn the lines." How we delivered them was up to us.

So it came as no small revelation on the day when the eight pairs of us wannabe actors performed eight scenes from eight completely different plays. We all delivered the exact same lines, but that was really the only thing each performance had in common. It was pretty amazing to see how such seemingly ordinary lines could have so many interpretations- and how many of those interpretations were wholly justifiable decisions. By turns the scene was funny, melodramatic, absurd, and sad. It all depended on the delivery.

In the years since, I've often watched plays and films and wondered what would be different if the lines a given actor, or some part of their performance, were delivered differently. I've also noticed that when I begin to ask myself these questions it means I'm not sold on the performance I'm watching. Something happening onstage or onscreen is pulling me from the immediate experience, making me desire an alternative version. Most recently I experienced this last week at the Roda Theatre during Berkeley Rep's opening night of the West Coast premiere of Christopher Durang's Tony Award-winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. 

All of the actors assembled for this Chekovian farce are top-notch, as is the set by Kent Dorsey and the costumes by Debra Beaver Bauer.Sadly, it's the direction by Richard E.T. White that undermines Durang's witty script, which is laden with sharp dialogue, vivid characters, some keen insight and more than a few laughs. The script of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike takes characters, situations, and themes from Chekov's plays and spins them into frothy social commentary featuring Vanya and Sonia, who have spent the last fifteen years caring for their now-deceased parents now rambling around a huge Pennsylvania home in their pajamas, supported by their sister Masha, a Hollywood actress now getting offered matronly roles after a career of being cast as a sexpot. One day Masha returns home unexpectedly with the intent of selling the family home, effectively kicking her siblings to the curb after they've sacrificed their entire lives sacrificing their entire lives for their parents.

The early scenes with Anthony Fusco (Vanya) and Sharon Lockwood (Sonia) serving up long-held frustrations and resentments to one another before Masha's return set the stage for a promising evening which goes off the rails shortly after Masha's (Lorri Holt) entrance with Spike (Mark Junek), her most recent male-of-the-month. For the next two hours White has Holt and Junek perform "at eleven" without once letting the actors breathe a bit of actual life into the roles by allowing them to dial it down a bit. Instead, the farce becomes forced, and Durang's succession of well-crafted exchanges becomes frustrating, then exhausting, as everyone keeps playing the same repeated note for volume rather than effect. And that's a shame because when the audience finally does get to see a glimpse behind the mask of these characters it's apparent that an opportunity at sharp, subtle comedy (see Chekov, Anton) comedy has been tossed away in favor of a shallow attempt to fish a constant stream of yuks from the audience.

Lockwood slyly steals the show, managing to give Sonia a real arc despite the clatter around her. Fusco has a brilliant moment during a haranguing monologue pitting the digital present against a Kodachrome past. Heather Alicia Simms manages to rise above almost uncomfortable stereotyping as Cassandra, the household maid who can sometimes accurately foretell the future, sometimes not so much, and Caroline Kaplan scores the highest ratio of hitting the target dead-on as Nina, a young neighbor who walked off the set of The Seagull to admire Masha and Spike but becomes a student of Uncle Vanya.

Holt and Junek don't fare as well, though one wishes they could. Both are obviously talented actors, and Junek's physical presence onstage is massive, but through the majority of the play neither is given much of an opportunity to present their characters as more than caricatures. White doesn't seem to understand that the script has already done that part for them- what would have been nice to see is the humanity that's hiding in just beneath the surface, and as I said, when he finally does it's too late. The ending also feels forced and false- it's way too sunshiny, and a little "Rain" would have been more appropriate. That one's on Durang.

 Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike plays through October 25th at Berkeley Rep's Roda Theatre.