Introverted homebodies Vanya and Sonia fully expect to endure more social humiliation but instead have an experience that turns all their expectation about how the last chapters of their lives will play out on their heads. In the first act, it all makes for some broadly comic moments, as the (self-described) loser siblings are forced to confront the fact that their movie-star sister is prettier, richer and has a sex life.Īnd just in case you miss that message in the text, Spike’s tendency to wander around with his shirt off, manspreading at every opportunity - with Perry playing it for all its worth - delivers it all home with the sledgehammer subtlety of a Michael Bay movie - not that Durang ever claimed, over the course of a five-decade career as one of America’s funniest, smartest playwrights to ever have aimed for subtlety.īut just when you have wrapped your brain around the idea of Spike and his manspreading gym bod dominating affairs, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike takes a surprise turn that isn’t broadly comic at all, even if all the characters head off to a costume party at the home of a neighbour who lives in a house once owned by Dorothy Parker, dressed as Snow White (Masha), a couple dwarfs (Vanya and Nina), Prince Charming (Spike) - and the evil stepmother, if she were played by Maggie Smith (Anderson).
