Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Arena Stage

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Arena Stage
1101 Sixth Street, SW Washington

Winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play (and the Outer Critics Circle and the Drama League and the Drama Desk), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a “sunny new play about gloomy people” (New York Times). Siblings Vanya and Sonia live out their days in an endless, bleak tableau in Bucks County, PA. All seems numbingly mundane until in sweeps hurricane Masha, their fading movie star sister, with her shiny new boy toy and a big announcement. Satirizing characters and themes from Chekhov’s classics, Christopher Durang’s latest madcap masterpiece serves up family drama with comic savagery and poses the question: if you could choose your family, would you necessarily choose your family?

Thru - May 3, 2015

Price: $45 - $119

Running Time: 2 hrs; one intermission

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Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Reviews

Average Rating based on 7 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Highly Recommended

"...Durang also comes up with a warmhearted, surprisingly personable play that’s touchingly acted in the production that officially opened Thursday at Arena Stage. You can see why this 2013 Tony winner for best play is the most-produced script in the country this season. It’s a clever, steady grin with a sweetness that’s hard to pull off onstage."

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- Nelson Pressley

MetroWeekly - Recommended

"...If Vanya is the play’s conscience, Sonia is its heart –- even if it’s rather a corny one. Though she has something of a coming-of-middle-age that will get the Red Hat Society inductees and emeriti alternately seat-dancing and getting misty-eyed, there is nevertheless just a bit more to Sonia than her crowd-pleasing. She may be flaky but Durang gives her an occasionally canny and sardonic eye and voice. This balance between the artless and the activated is not an easy one and Sherri L. Edelen gets it right, with a kind of defiant charisma that goes a long way in mitigating the hokier moments."

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- Kate Wingfield

Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended

"...Edelen is the brightest light on the stage as she takes Sonia from dowdy and defensive to resplendent and, most surprising to her, happy. She never condescends toward the character but understands and accepts her flaws. Hissom is a charming Vanya and Gonglewski amuses as she portrays Masha's self-absorption, while Farber works to keep Spike from becoming unbearably egotistical, and Dukes grabs focus in every scene in which she appears."

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- Susan Berlin

The Georgetowner - Recommended

"...Something seems to have happened to Durang with “VSMS.” He appears to have mellowed a little. He has afflicted his characters with painful modern crosses to bear and little wherewithal to withstand the pain, but he’s also bathed them in the warm (and sometimes fuzzy) light of hope. This is also good for the audience, which has opportunities to become fully engaged with these often hapless, self-centered, funny, sad (in a thoroughly Chekhovian way), glib, defiant characters. At a recent matinee performance that I saw, the audience did just that and then some in a surprising and clearly visible and audible show of emotions. "

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- Gary Tischler

MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended

"...When it comes to Durang, there are never any guarantees. Until you have seen one of his pieces, you will never know if you’ll like it. They are inevitably unique, witty shows that tease and entertain, but some people are put off by the “ham factor,” or the melodramatic style that characterizes Durang’s works. The ham factor in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is certainly high, and the anti-youth theme might be a bit off-putting to those of us in the “selfie” generation that Vanya so ruthlessly mocks. That would be a shame, because Durang is a playwright that every theatregoer should experience at least once, and Arena’s production is virtually flawless. Regardless of the message, Arena has staged a hilarious, well-crafted show filled with talented people, and you can’t ask for more than that."

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- Julieanna Novak

DCTheatreScene - Somewhat Recommended

The play has a talented author in Christopher Durang, whose penchant for blood-freezing awkwardness is the epitome of the modern American “living room play.” Arena couldn’t have found a better director in Aaron Posner, whose recent adaptation Life Sucks at Theater J means that he is closer to the Chekhovian source material than anyone around. Durang’s Vanya fits DC audiences, too, with rapid-fire topicality beloved by our highly-educated, hyper-social populace.

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- Alan Katz

Magic Time - Highly Recommended

"...Durang’s script is currently much produced across the land, and it’s no wonder why—Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a funny, funny play with an astonishingly huge heart. It’s set in the present in a well-kept house in the country that is home to sister and brother Sonia (Sherri L. Edelen) and Vanya (Eric Hissom) and owned by their sister Masha (Grace Gonglewski), a semifamous film actress who arrives in Act One. The whole setup is a clever mash-up of bits and pieces from Chekhov."

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- John Stoltenberg

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Arena Stage