A couple of generations ago, there was an ad campaign in New York City for a local bakery. The ads featured portraits, including an Asian lad, a native American, a broad-faced cop, Buster Keaton each with a piece of bread, a bite taken out of it. On each ad was the slogan, "You don't have to be Jewish to like Levy's Rye Bread". And in a similar mode, let me announce you don't have to like, or even be familiar with Anton Chekhov to enjoy "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike."
The Rep's current mainstage production of the Christopher Durang play is inspired by Chekhovian themes but that doesn't interfere in the least with the acerbic wit of the script. Another Russian, Tolstoy, talked about unhappy families and this seems to be one. Three middle-aged siblings have grown up in a house in a fashionable area of semi-rural Pennsylvania. Middle age has accentuated the sometimes-polite miserableness that inhabits and inhibits their lives. Two of the siblings stayed home to take care of mum and dad, now-deceased academics. The third went on to professional success as an actress and five, count 'em, five divorces. The actress, Masha, has come home for the weekend to visit her siblings, Vanya and Sonia, and to attend a party nearby "at the Dorothy Parker house!" And, oh, she's brought her boyfriend Spike along.
This is a marvelous ensemble, each like a jewel perfectly placed in its setting. Led by Vanya and Sonia, John Feltch and Suzanne Grodner, the weekend proceeds in bursts. The mild-mannered Feltch has a monologue near the end that nearly tears the stage apart. Grodner, what that doyenne of desirability, Helen Gurley Brown, would have called a mouseburger, absolutely blooms. Watch her during an unexpected phone call. Elizabeth Hess' Masha, an aging diva who runs everyone around her, shows just enough fragility to make her believable rather than a caricature. And then there's Spike. Spike, Jefferson McDonald, is Masha's boyfriend – who is officially 12 years younger, but there's ample reason to doubt that, on both ends of the spectrum. He's an airheaded kid, cheerful, but evoking frequent memories of Seinfeld's pal Kramer. Shinnerrie Jackson, the cleaning lady who soothsays about everything, is a delight, and so is Nina, Gracyn Mix, an adolescent almost swanlike in her delicacy, and utterly believable.
The set, the sort of place one might want to visit for a while, is from Paul Shortt. And full credit to Michael Evan Haney, the director, who keeps the pace darn near perfect.
A well-spent evening.
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
through April 12
Main Stage
Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
314-968-4925