FAMILY SQUABBLES PEAK in CCA’s play, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.” Above, Spike (Angel Reyes, Jr.) waxes romantic with naïve Nina (Savannah Rogan) as siblings Vanya (David Dye) and Sonia (Kathleen Morrow) watch with chagrin.
FAMILY SQUABBLES PEAK in CCA’s play, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.” Above, Spike (Angel Reyes, Jr.) waxes romantic with naïve Nina (Savannah Rogan) as siblings Vanya (David Dye) and Sonia (Kathleen Morrow) watch with chagrin.
Patrick Mulvihill
Masha and Spike, smooch with soap opera gusto in costume party garb.
Patrick Mulvihill
A comedy of conflict, the placid home Vanya and Sonia occupy gets riled up when Masha, sneering, returns home from movie stardom with Spike.
Patrick Mulvihill
Jennifer Hanlon-Wilde sweeps away as the eccentric housekeeper Cassandra.
Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for students and seniors 62 and over. Tickets available at Waucoma Bookstore and Columbia Center for the Arts, 215 Cascade Ave. For group tickets, come to gallery or purchase by phone at 541-387-8877 x115. Suitable for children 14 years and older — mature themes and content. Play runs May 6-7, 13-14, and 20-21 at 7:30 p.m. and May 8 and 15 at 2 p.m.
Nobody’s safe from mockery in Columbia Center for the Arts’ upcoming play, “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” which opens Friday.
Family relationships — and squabbles — take center stage. Vanya and his sister Sonia tolerate their boring middle-aged lives, until their movie-star sister Masha comes home for a surprise visit with her “boy-toy” Spike, shaking up everything.
Intertwined in the maelstrom are the sassy, voodoo dabbling housekeeper Cassandra, and Nina, a young aspiring actress whose prettiness worries the jealous Masha.
“This comedy is about how change affects family relationships, something we all know and understand,” Director Tom Burns said.
Burns first learned about “VSMS” when a fellow actor called him from New York and said, “You must direct it.”
The 2013 Tony Best Play award winner by Christopher Durang now comes to Hood River with a small, tight-knit cast of veteran actors. Stage design is simple, giving breathing room for broad performances.
“These characters are filled with self-delusions and self-pity, but we also understand and like them immediately,” Burns said.
The tale begins with Vanya and Sonia’s dull life at a farmhouse in Bucks County. When Masha returns with Spike and announces she wants to sell the home, the normally quiet household erupts into chaos. Everybody gets swirled up in a mix of lust, rivalry, regret, and the sudden possibility of escape.
However, silly elements are strong. The self-absorbed Spike rarely keeps his shirt on. Cassandra gives dark tidings that the family will fall victim to voodoo curses. A costume party adds to the drama, as some characters are stuck with less flattering outfits — like Dopey and Doc from Snow White.
“No one will get out of this without looking absolutely ridiculous!” Burns said.
Burns said the play carries elements from playwright Anton Chekhov’s works, but it’s not required knowledge. More important is knowing childhood classics like “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Old Yeller,” he said.
The play, which has proved popular since its New Jersey run in 2012, treads with both humor and deep personal themes.
“The play carries the audience on a hilarious and emotional journey, a delicate balanced between hope, which is not the same as fulfillment, and disappointment, which is not inconsistent with hope. In fact, disappointment is in many ways the precondition of hope: without disappointments, why would hope be necessary? VSMS doesn’t disappoint; it always offers hope,” Burns said.
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