MASHA You are! I often miss you! I’m in a play or a movie, and I think of my dear Sonia, and think, oh I miss her! I must call her. Then I get called to the set and months go by and I forget to call. Life happens, no?

SONIA Not here it doesn’t. We sit still a lot. We look out the window. We bicker. We long for what the world cannot give. We are in our twilight years, and we realize we have never really lived.

MASHA (lightly) Oh, that’s too bad.. (back to herself, happy) Oh I wish I had time to sit still. I’m always busy, I’m always on the TV, or flying off to some foreign country to make a movie. Oh I wish I had time to read the classics, sit in a chair, and just read. Do you read the classics, Sonia?

SONIA No. I think of it, but I have too much free time. There’s so much I could fill the free time with, I can’t make decisions. So I do nothing. I am a wild turkey, I am a wild turkey.

MASHA Really? How alarming. (softer, to Vanya) What’s the matter with her?

VANYA She’s referring to falling out of bed. She’s fine. Masha, you look wonderful as usual. But what did you say about a Snow White costume?

MASHA Oh did I forget to tell Sonia?

SONIA Um . . . probably. Tell me what?

MASHA Well I got a lovely invitation from that extremely wealthy woman who bought the Dorothy Parker house up the road. She’s one of our neighbors here, and she’s dying to get to know people in the area, and so she’s throwing a costume party. And she asked me to come.

VANYA Well she hasn’t asked us to come.

MASHA Well you’re not famous. She’s inviting famous people and literary people, and interesting people. And, of course, you and Sonia are very interesting. And I told her that, so she wants both of you to come with me and Spike tonight.

VANYA Spike?

Enter Spike, carrying a large garment bag, which holds the costume, and a shepherd’s crook. He finds somewhere to hang up or put down the garment bag and the crook.

SPIKE (friendly, charming) Yup, that’s my name. Don’t wear it out.

VANYA I’ll try not to.

SPIKE Okay, I got the costume and this weird shepherd’s thing.

MASHA Thank you, Spike.

SONIA Is Spike the name you were given at birth?

SPIKE No, it’s my acting name. My real name was Vlad. But my agent said that that was hard to hear, and I was wearing my hair all spikey that day, and he said, why don’t you call yourself Spike. And so I do.