Every morning Vanya and Sonia drink coffee while watching the blue heron feed at their pond in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The scene seems serenely perfect, except it’s not. Vanya (R. Hamilton Wright) and Sonia (Marianne Owen) are unmarried 50-something siblings—Sonia is adopted, and she’ll keep reminding us of that—who cared for their dying parents and still live in their childhood home. Their sister Masha (Pamela Reed), an aging starlet, funds their bleak lives (someone has to). Though cut from the same proverbial cloth, Vanya and Sonia and Masha are as unique as they are the same. Their theater-loving parents named them after Chekhov characters, and the specter of Chekhov hangs over Christopher Durang’s Tony-winning comedy.
Director Kurt Beattie mixes the absurdist levity with a whirlwind of bittersweet emotions; the effect is often frustrating but also satisfying. Durang’s characters can seem flat, at times almost caricatures, though his themes are resoundingly heartfelt. There’s more mood here than solid plot (again: Chekhov), which revolves around a family reunion of sorts. Masha visits her siblings with her boy-toy Spike (the excessively bare-chested William Poole) with the intent of selling the house, a misfortune foretold by Cassandra the housekeeper (the gregarious Cynthia Jones). Meanwhile neighbors visit, siblings bicker, compliments are undone by criticism, schemes are uncovered, and parties end in disaster.
Despite all Durang’s amusing references to Chekhov, Pirandello, Greek tragedy, and even Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, you sometimes feel you’re watching a clever yet contrived sitcom. The happy ending is a given, and the play’s almost more interesting for its individual character and scene studies. For instance, a phone exchange between Sonia and a gentleman caller creates unexpected pathos and brings to light the allure of self-sabotage. A spastic outburst from Vanya on the nature of change may cause you to wonder if he’s about to suffer a nervous breakdown. And the prima donna Masha’s inability to give up the spotlight is seen to be human, however inane.
A carefree country life this isn’t, and Carey Wong’s ironically idyllic set holds enough dust and skeletons to fill a lifetime—or three. ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., 292-7676, acttheatre.org. $55 and up. Runs Tues.–Sun. Ends Nov. 16.
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