"Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike"

July 16, 2015 — Vanya (Dale Place) and Sonia (Dee Nelson), a middle-aged brother and sister (although Sonia makes it very clear she's adopted) live a bored existence together in their country home, paid for by their sister Masha (Anne-Marie Cusson), a successful actress who also sends them a monthly stipend. In spite of the names, they're not Russian. Their classical actor parents named them after characters in Chekhov plays.

Vanya and Sonia have sacrificed any hope of success in life by devoting years to caring for their aging parents, now dead. Sonia, self-pitying, and Vanya, resigned to his dead-end situation, barely tolerate each other. Their housekeeper, Cassandra, a tornado of energy and doomsday prophecy, is played by Cheryl Mullings in a show-stealing performance.

When Masha shows up unannounced with her twenty-years-younger boyfriend, Spike (Evan D. Siegel), Vanya and Sonia's humdrum life is shaken to the core. Masha, flamboyant and domineering, is tall and physically imposing as she towers over the other women in the cast. Spike is an aspiring actor, but his main talent seems to be ripping his clothes off at every opportunity and parading around in skimpy undershorts or bathing trunks.

Things are further complicated when Nina (Angela Hope Smith) shows up, star-struck by the famous Masha and drawing unwanted attention from Spike. Then the pot is further stirred up when Masha announces she can no longer afford the house and is going to sell it, and will also have to end Vanya and Sonia's stipend, leaving them homeless and penniless.

With everything else that's going on, the group prepares for a costume ball in which Sonia garners all the praise, intolerable for the attention-greedy Masha. Later, a play written by Vanya is read, shades of Chekhov's "The Seagull," and Vanya goes off on a five-minute-long tirade against cell-phones, email and other modern technology. "We licked stamps!" he repeats many times. It's a tour de force rant that earns him spontaneous applause.

This bizarre cast of characters romped across the Barnstormers stage in Christopher Durang's "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike," directed by Blair Hundertmark, in Tamworth, New Hampshire. A real audience-pleaser with a terrific cast and lots of laughs, this first-night performance by the Barnstormer's best actors was flawless.