Midland Center Explores the Rocky Dynamics of Family Interaction in the Tony Award Winning Comedy ‘Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike

The Tony Award winning comedy Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike, which debuted on Broadway back in 2013, provided ample proof that when it comes to staging cutting edge contemporary theatre, an elixir concocted from equal amounts of creativity, talent, and inter-personal chemistry serves up an intoxicating and hilarious cocktail when fueled by an often uneven and unpredictable flow of family dynamics.

Set for performances by Center Stage Theatre at Midland Center for the Arts from April 12-14 & 18 - 21^st under the direction of Chad William Baker, the narrative revolves around the relationships of three middle-aged single siblings, two of whom live together, with the action taking place during a visit from the third sibling, Masha – who supports the other two.

Playwright Cristopher Durang - an admitted admirer of Russian playwright Anton Chekov - has fashioned together this relatively intricate tale involving Vanya and his sister Sonia, both surrendering to and tolerating the mediocrity of their middle-aged lives in Bucks Country, PA, until their movie-star sister Masha returns for a visit. 

With her boy-toy Spike accompanying her, Masha is like nitro-glycerin hitting her family chemistry, inciting all variety of combustion into this family reunion, complete with Hollywood egos, Disney character costumes, and unexpected liaisons that lead to deeper questions and unexpected clarity. Durang went to college with actress Sigourney Weaver, whom he based the character of Masha around, and with this particular work audiences are invited to take a look at family relationships from the level of how ridiculous we often tend to react and interact with one another.

For director Chad William Baker, the opportunity to direct this production presents a huge opportunity scattered with many assorted challenges. “I really like Christopher Durang and haven’t had the opportunity to tackle any of his plays since college,” he states. “I really love how he writes such absurd characters, yet makes everything about them so real and relatable to things we all go through in life. Despite his fondness for Chekov, you don’t need to understand him in order to understand his characters because he puts them all in a blender, so the situations are very relatable.”

“In a way, this factor also poses the biggest challenge with directing this play, because given the circumstances each of these characters have gone through in their lives, much of the dialogue revolves around how they will react to one another given the way their lives have evolved, which can be challenging seeing as the dialogue was written to be so absurd,” he adds.

“Sonya is an adopted child and has been with the family since the age of eight, while Vanya and Masha have been dealing with their family’s legacy their entire life, so it’s a fine balancing act between how you react to people you’ve known forever - you hate them, but at the core you love them.”

With a cast that consist of Bill Anderson, Jr. in the role of Vanya, Trena Winans as Sonia, Ashley Potts as Masha, Matthew Lindauer as Spike, Amy Delaney as Nina, and Mickie Logan as Cassandra, Chad says he is immensely pleased with the chemistry and talent each cast member bring to their roles.

“Bill and Trena are seasoned members of the cast and have worked together and known each other for many years, so playing siblings for them is easy,” reflects Chad. “Amy is relatively new, and for Matthew, who plays the relatively important character of Spike, this is the first show he’s ever done, but he’s dived into the role and has such good instincts and is able to bond with the cast so well that I’m pleased with the choices he makes as an actor. He’s dived in head first and taken this role and ran with it, and it’s a challenging role because in many ways he is much more than just a boy toy.”

When it comes to weaving all these interactions between the characters together, Chad says they share one thing in common. “Because these siblings are older I think we all feel at some point our lives are not living up to what we wanted them to be,” he reflects. “When you’re 20-years older and look back at your dreams, I think that feeling only gets stronger, especially with the characters of Vanya and Sonya who see their sister who got away and succeeded in the world and had a life outside of this bubble they both feel trapped in. However, Masha also feels that while she had the life of a famous movie star, she also had to leave and abandon the family, so they all share regrets about their choices.”

Given the careful construction of the script, themes flow from this play naturally; but one dynamic that also stands out is that contrast between youth and beauty, age and experience. 

An important core of this production - apart from the hilarity between the siblings’ exchanges - is an  exploration of what’s missing in younger generations because of things like texting and other distracting factors, that cause one to lose the ability to communicate as individuals face-to-face.

“There’s a long monologue in this production dealing with age gaps that comes into play, and I relate to Vanya and what he says, too, about not having that ‘connection’ to people - not fulfilling his goals, partly because the goal has been moved, so no one is pursuing the things they want anymore.”

“Apart from this being a very physical comedy, along with the silliness, I think we all relate at some point in life to what these characters are going through,” concludes Chad.

Performances for Midland Center’s production of ‘Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike’ will run from April 12-14 & 18-21^st. All performance times are at 7:30 PM expect for Sunday 2:00 PM matinees. Tickets are $25.50 for adult and $19.50 for students, not including processing fees, and can be ordered online at www.midlandcenter.org. Midland Center for the Arts is located at 1801 W. St. Andrews.