Ever since the 15th of September, students have known to keep an eye out for the thrilling winter production by the MBHS Drama Club, Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike. The dates of the play were posted in the Advisory Announcements on December 6th and since then we had been eagerly on the lookout for an email with information about the tickets. However, students were left disappointed and let down by the empty hole in their inbox. Although the show was advertised throughout the halls, tickets were not made widely available to the student body due to the small size of the theater in Room 329. Luckily your intrepid reporters still got the chance to watch the play, and we had so much to say about it that we wrote a review!
“I thought that it was first come first serve,,” said junior Valentina Ferri, who was eager to see the play and did not realize she would need a ticket. Unfortunately, students like Ferri were left hanging when they approached the black box theater in 329, as they were asked if they were on “the list”. After some digging, these disappointed writers discovered that only teachers, seniors, and families of performers were given access to tickets. Thankfully, we waited patiently with pleading eyes at the “theater” door and were eventually let in. “I am grateful that I got a seat but I believe that it is unjust that this was not communicated,” an angry Ferri shared.
The play, Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike is a comedy written by Christopher Durang about three middle aged siblings who each have their own complicated lives (or lack thereof). Two of the siblings, Vanya and Sonia, reside in the childhood home left to them by their parents, while their sister Masha is a celebrity in Beverly Hills with a new (and young) lover–the titular Spike. Financially, Masha supports her siblings, and so they are unwilling to work, since they have no need to. Vanya and Sonia spend their days arguing, making up and then arguing some more; their interactions often involve the smashing of cups and aggressive threats. On yet another hostile morning, Masha barges into the house announcing that she is selling the property because it is out of her budget. But she attempts to make it up to her siblings by inviting them to a celebrity costume party. Vanya and Sonia are flabbergasted by this news, yet they have no time to sulk, since they have to get dolled up for the event. Sonia moves past her insecurities (of being single and 50) with the reminder that Masha is successful and has a young fling at her side and she decides to step out of her comfort zone and live it up at this function. She does indeed live it up and secures herself a date for the following weekend. While Sonia’s luck improves, Masha’s dwindles as her relationship with Spike falls apart–a fact which the family’s clairvoyant maid had originally predicted. By the play’s end, Masha decides to focus on her family and retracts her decision to sell the house, easing tension within the family and reuniting the siblings.
We, Rebecca and Dasha (not Masha), managed to secure seats for the play despite the trials and tribulations we faced beforehand. Although we watched the same play, sitting right next to each other, we had opposite feelings about it. Rebecca feels that the play was witty and filled with slapstick joys, while Dasha feels that while the acting was impressive, but the story and execution did not rise to the same level. In this article we will share our opinions and respond to each other’s point of view.
Rebecca: I found the humorous scenes of siblings bickering and the topsy turvy plotline amusing. I do wish sometimes the actors had projected and enunciated their lines more since from the back, I could not hear it at times. But ultimately, I found myself engaged by the original storyline. Christopher Durang’s script cleverly blends both comedy and family drama into its plot. The technical aspects of the play were also impressive. The props looked realistic and authentic to the country home setting, and the costumes suited the characters’ personas.
My fellow audience member Erla Lamce thought the play was “funny and unique” and the rest of the audience seemed to agree, based on their laughter throughout the performance; when Sonia threw a mug out of frustration on the ground and, on cue, it crumbled, a roar erupted. The actor’s playful use of comic timing with with the prop made the scene amusing and comical. The actor portraying Sonia, Cora Anderson, was particularly strong. Their character is sensitive and self-victimizing and goes berserk when Vanya accuses her of wasting her life away. Anderson executed this moment very well, making the audience believe Sonia was really mad and disappointed in herself as a middle aged person who has never been on a date. Anderson flails near the audience yelling, pessimistically predicting Sonia’s future as a lonely, sad, cat person.
The costumes highlighted the character’s idiosyncrasies even further: Vanya and Sonia typically wore different shades of grey and beige (reflecting their sullen perspectives on life), while Masha was constantly seen in bright red or sparkly pieces of clothing (depicting her habit of showing-off). The lighting and sound team were on point throughout the play, laying down every sound effect with perfect comedic timing; I found the use of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” especially amusing. The sound team unfurled the track during what we’ll call an… intimate scene, where Spike removed his outermost clothing garments revealing no nudity, but a very realistic hairy chest printed on his t-shirt. Though the drama club had little space to work with, they made the most of the cramped black box, using the hallways as their backstage changing area, as the propmasters carried in and out of the classroom, convincing the audience that they were in another location. Overall, my perspective of the play was that it was a well-executed production.. Though the actors and technicians might have room to grow,every aspect of it was amusing to watch. I give the Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike performance ★★★★☆ stars.
Dasha: My main quibble with the play is that the cast was made up of over 30 students, but the script has only 6 characters. This made the show not only confusing but inconsistent. We met the characters via one actor who applied their own twist to the performance, but the next scene would have a different player who had a completely different take on the character. It felt as if in each scene we were introduced to a new set of characters as no two people can play a character the same way. This made me wonder what the characters’ personalities were supposed to be— was Cassandra a sassy side character, or a dismissive background character? Was Nina a confident young woman, or a naive and childish one? Even while writing this review, I have trouble remembering who played which character because there were just so many actors playing the same roles that only a few stuck out to me while many blended into the background. If the cast had been only composed of 6 actors, perhaps each person would have all been more memorable and I would have had a different position on the performance. However, as soon as the play started, I was confused as to why this play was chosen out of all of the thousands of scripts which exist. Most of the jokes fell short with much of the student audience. An anonymous audience member came forward to speak their truth: “I was nodding off for half the play and had trouble keeping my eyes open,” but was jolted awake by laughing next to her. Teachers who came to see the play were laughing the whole time. Perhaps the next play needs to be somewhere in the middle— funny enough for both students and teachers to find jokes funny. I still had positive hopes that the end would bring the story together, but I feel it did not. I had fought so hard to get a ticket was left in disappointment.). I will give the Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike performance ★★☆☆☆ stars.
While we had opposing opinions on this play, we want to remind everyone that art is subjective and interpretive, the way we understood the scenes at times will probably be different from the way you understood the scene. All the actors, staff members and backstage crew all did an amazing job to create this play, we do not mean to undermine any of the hard work done.
