{"id":8114,"date":"2013-10-17T12:45:43","date_gmt":"2013-10-17T19:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2013-10-17T16:49:25","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T23:49:25","slug":"comedy-with-chekhov-links-is-likely-to-make-you-laugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/comedy-with-chekhov-links-is-likely-to-make-you-laugh\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedy with Chekhov links is likely to make you laugh"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Woody’s [rating:5]\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Mark Junek does reverse striptease in the role of Spike as (from left) Anthony Fusco (Vanya), Caroline Kaplan (Nina), and Lorri Holt (Masha) watch in \u201cVanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.\u201d Photo courtesy kevinberne.com.<\/p><\/div>\n

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“Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” is more fun than a horse-drawn cart of Anton Chekhov characters.<\/div>\n
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Frankly, I\u2019ve always chortled at the Russian\u2019s more piquant stuff. Never guffawed. \u201cVanya,\u201d in contrast, made me laugh aloud. You\u2019re likely to as well.<\/div>\n

A lot more than once.<\/p>\n

No, I didn\u2019t wet myself. But it was a close call during the Berkeley Rep production of the comedy that won this year\u2019s Tony Award as best play.<\/p>\n

The Big Apple run starred Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce. I can visualize their performances as two of the three title siblings named after Chekhov characters.<\/p>\n

But director Richard E.T. White conducts his ensemble of actors as if it were a jazz sextet, staging one solo riff after another to extract loud laughter from the audience as easily as a teenager might Google just about anything.Witness, for instance, the brilliance of Mark Junek\u2019s physical antics when his character, the twentysomething boy-toy Spike, does a reverse strip tease.<\/p>\n

Or Sharon Lockwood\u2019s breakout as Sonia, imitating Maggie Smith emoting in a screechy British voice on the way to the Oscars (while prancing in\u00a0a tiara and blue gown on which no more sequins would fit).<\/p>\n

Or Heather Alicia Simms\u2019 star turn as Cassandra, a voodoo pi<\/p>\n

n-pricking prognosticator, or Anthony Fusco\u2019s Old World passivity as the bearded Vanya.Nor should the other performers be ignored. Both are top drawer, Lorri Holt as narcissistic B-movie star Masha (\u201cI just feel old and vulnerable\u201d) and Caroline Kaplan as wannabe actress Nina, who\u2019s attracted to Spike (\u201cHe is so attractive \u2014 except for his personality, of course\u201d).<\/p>\n

Playwright Christopher Durang\u2019s wit and cleverness can be as swift-paced as a Louis C.K. standup routine, and as omnipresent as his allusions to Shakespeare, the Beatles and Disney\u2019s seven dwarfs.<\/p>\n

Durang even spoofs his own reverence for his favorite 19th Century playwright.\u201cIf everyone took anti-depressants, Chekhov would have had nothing to write about,\u201d intones one character. \u201cI hope you\u2019re not going to make Chekhov references all day,\u201d pleads another.But the seriousness that lies underneath is countered by the buffoonery that\u2019s pervasive.<\/p>\n

Indeed, \u201cVanya\u201d is an homage, with frequent references to \u201cThree Sisters,\u201d \u201cThe Cherry Orchard\u201d and \u201cUncle Vanya\u201d but if you\u2019ve never seen or read anything by Chekhov you\u2019ll still enjoy the banter, set pieces and character development \u2014 not to mention the marvelous costuming by Debra Beaver Bauer (look particularly for the dwarfs), note-perfect sound design by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen, and the lone set by Kent Dorsey that replicates an upscale country home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Durang\u00a0actually lives.<\/p>\n

Durang\u2019s characters are skillfully drawn. Sonia and Vanya feel their lives have passed them by, having spent 15 years caring for their Alzheimer\u2019s-plagued parents.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s never reconciled her being adopted, and is usually sad and angry, a throwaway spinster who \u201ccan\u2019t do anything right.\u201d He laments his life, too, and relishes raving about the glories of yesteryear and the dreadfulness of today\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

Like much of Chekhov\u2019s work, \u201cVanya\u201d emphasizes people and relationships rather than plot \u2014 with everyone working in unison to make sure the audience feels the play is much shorter than its two hours plus.<\/p>\n

And when the characters become stagehands and move furniture between scenes, their actions appear to be seamless part of the play.Durang, who is gay, has had a history of dealing with homosexuality, Roman Catholic dogma and child abuse in his previous work (which included \u201cSister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You\u201d and \u201cBeyond Therapy\u201d).This one skips the dogma and abuse.<\/p>\n

Samuel Beckett, creator of \u201cWaiting for Godot,\u201d is known as the father of the Theater of the Absurd. In a sense, Durang might be considered his stepchild, romping in the same playground although his humor and personages are less abstract, more grounded, more rooted in reality.<\/p>\n

Despite all the mugging and over-the-topness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019d you recommend this show to?\u201d my wife asked me as we left the theater, continuing a verbal game we\u2019ve played for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone,\u201d I replied \u2014 \u201cwithout hesitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike\u201d plays at the Berkeley Repertory\u2019s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Oct. 25. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $17.50 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating:5]\u00a0 “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” is more fun than a horse-drawn cart of Anton Chekhov characters. Frankly, I\u2019ve always chortled at the Russian\u2019s more piquant stuff….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"