Cover

Halftitle

Vanya and Sonia

and Masha and Spike

Also by the Author

Christopher Durang works published by Grove Press:

The Marriage of Bette and Boo

Laughing Wild and Baby with the Bathwater

Christopher Durang Explains It All for You

(volume includes:

The Nature and Purpose of the Universe

’dentity Crisis

Titanic

The Actor’s Nightmare

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You

Beyond Therapy)

Betty’s Summer Vacation

Miss Witherspoon and Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge

Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them and Other Political Plays

Title

Vanya and Sonia

and Masha and Spike

Christopher Durang

Grove Press

New York

Copyright

Copyright © 2013 by Christopher Durang

Introduction copyright © 2013 by David Hyde Pierce

Drama Critics’ Circle Award speech © copyright 2013 by Sigourney Weaver

Cover photo by Brigitte Lacombe for The New Yorker

Actors (from left to right): Kristine Nielsen, David Hyde Pierce, Sigourney Weaver, Billy Magnussen

Costume design by Emily Rebholz

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

Printed in the United States of America

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-8021-2238-4

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8021-9272-1

CAUTION: Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and all British Commonwealth countries, and all countries covered by the International Copyright Union, the Pan-American Copyright Convention, and the Universal Copyright Convention. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, public reading, radio broadcasting, television, video or sound taping, all other forms of mechanical or electronic reproduction, such as information storage and retrieval systems and photocopying, and rights of translation into foreign languages, are strictly reserved.

Stock and amateur applications for permission to perform Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike must be made in advance to Dramatists Play Service (440 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016, telephone: 212-683-8960, www.dramatists.com) and by paying the requisite fee, whether the plays are presented for charity or gain and whether or not admission is charged. First Class and professional applications must be made in advance to ICM Partners, Attn: Patrick Herold, 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019 and by paying the requisite fee.

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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Dedication

To my partner of 25 years, John Augustine

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

by David Hyde Pierce

In May of 2012, I got this note from Christopher Durang:

Dear David,

I have a new play that is being co-produced in the fall by McCarter Theatre and Lincoln Center. It’s called Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. It’s not a parody; it’s set in the present in Bucks County. Vanya and Masha are brother and sister, and Sonia is their adopted sister. They were given those names by their professor parents, who are now dead. But in some ways they do resemble Chekhov characters. I like to say the play takes Chekhovian characters and themes and puts them in a blender. The play is funny, but has genuine emotion in it as well. Nicky Martin is to direct. Sigourney W will be Masha, Kristine Nielsen, Sonia.

Chris asked if I would read the play, and if I would play Vanya, and I did both those things, and I’m so glad I did. It’s a very funny play, and a field day for the actors in all six roles. It is also richly layered, and its odd mix of contemporary references with Chekhovian themes and language creates a uniquely Durangian world.

The opening is a good example of what I’m talking about. It takes place in the morning room of a country house—a very Chekhovian setting, though this happens to be in Pennsylvania:

SONIA I brought you coffee, dearest Vanya.

VANYA I have some.

SONIA Oh. But I bring you coffee every morning.

VANYA Well, yes, but you weren’t available.

SONIA Well, I was briefly in the bathroom, you couldn’t wait?

The first line could be straight from Chekhov, the last line definitely isn’t. In five lines Chris reveals the relationship between the siblings, and establishes the world of the play. I read those lines, and I was hooked.

Chris actually wrote the character of Masha for his longtime pal and collaborator Sigourney Weaver, and he wrote Sonia for Kristine Nielsen, another dear friend and a veteran of Chris’s plays. I mention this so you’ll know, as you read, that the voices and the style of performance weren’t exaggerated or extreme—the roles were played by actors who inhabited them easily. The younger actors—Billy Magnussen, Shalita Grant, and Genevieve Angelson—were, to quote Masha, “pretty and luminous and full of youthful hope and enthusiasm.” They were also very gifted and highly skilled, and played their characters as people, not caricatures.

Rehearsals with our great director Nicholas Martin began at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, and that turned out to be a wonderful bonding experience. Most of us lived in Manhattan, so we’d pile into cars, or train back and forth together. Once the play opened we’d stay over in Princeton, drinking after the show at night, going for a run or taking odd field trips during the day. In Act II Vanya mentions watching the movie Old Yeller as a child—Sigourney and Kristine and I watched it one night in my apartment, huddled together on the sofa, crying our eyes out. That bonding continued as we moved from Princeton to Lincoln Center and then to Broadway; audience members said the closeness of the company was palpable in performance. That might be worth remembering as you read—for all the fighting and jealousy and sibling rivalry in the play, there is much love between these characters, as there was between the actors who first played them.

Chris originally wrote the role of Vanya for himself (Chris is an actor as well), and the character is in many ways a quiet observer throughout most of the play. He is also a peacemaker, which I think Chris may have been at certain times in his own family. But like Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, this Vanya finally gets a chance to express himself. I don’t want to tell you too much about it, I hate when introductions give away what happens. However, I will say that when we had the first reading of the play, I started into that part, which I’d just thought of as funny and angry, and in the midst of it I became very emotional, which came as a surprise to me and everyone else. Apparently Chris had tapped into something, and as we moved from rehearsals to performance, we found the audiences thought so too.

Whatever that something is, I don’t want to name it. It has roots in the lighter, playful-seeming first act, and it blossoms in the fight, the phone call, the rant and the revelations of Act II. There are themes in the play—changes in the climate and in life, the loss of personal connection, the insanity of popular culture—that were particularly relevant to our audiences, and many people said that Chris articulated things they were thinking but hadn’t spoken. Like Chekhov before him, Chris has written a very particular comedy about very specific people, yet in the process he has touched on something universal.

One last thing: In the play, Vanya is worried about climate change and global warming and whether the planet ultimately would survive. A few times during the run we had to temporarily cut or change lines about the weather, because some actual natural disaster had happened, and what had been a funny exaggeration in the play was no longer funny or an exaggeration. (Chris can be Cassandra-like in his ability to predict what’s about to happen in the world.)

If you’re reading this, then the world hasn’t come to an end. But if it’s about to, and you’ve chosen to spend your last minutes reading Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, then good for you. What a way to go.

Sigourney Weaver's Speech

Sigourney Weaver’s Speech Introducing Christopher Durang at the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards

May 12, 2013

Hi, Everyone,

I am delighted to be here with all of you to award the New York Drama Critics’ Circle’s Best Play of 2013 to this playwright I’ve kind of heard of—Christopher Durang. It is an inspired and thrilling choice. I went online to see who else had won this very prestigious award, and the list is dazzling … monumental writers who created our cultural landscape and are the reason many of us fell in love with the theater in the first place: O’Neill, Williams, Inge, Miller, Guare, Albee, Stoppard, Wilson, Vogel, Wasserstein, and now there at the end is Chris’s name for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and it looks so right there.

And if I may—there are not too many laugh-out-loud comedies on this list. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—okay. Neil Simon won once for Brighton Beach Memoirs, but I can’t remember if that’s one of his funny plays. And certainly there is no mention from the old days of Kaufman and Hart, or the great Thornton Wilder, with whom Durang shares a kinship. Imagine how Wilder would have enjoyed Miss Witherspoon!

Comedy is often dismissed as the lesser genre. Of course it’s actually more difficult to write a great comedy. As Chris mentioned in an interview—in 1959 the film Some Like It Hot received no Oscar nominations while Ben-Hur won eleven Academy Awards. And which one would you rather see today?

Molière was derided as a sketch writer because of his love for commedia dell ’arte. But I don’t see a lot of Corneille and Racine being done these days, and Moliere is packing people into theaters all over the world.

Chris writes about things that matter deeply to him. And I must tell you that we have so many young people, from teens to twentysomethings, for whom Durang is it. He speaks for them as well as for all of us who remember the happy tedium of licking stamps and dialing a telephone.

So I am delighted that you have recognized the substance, the rele­vance, and the craftsmanship of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, in spite of the fact that the play is an unabashed crowd pleaser, playing nightly to ecstatic sold-out crowds who have only one complaint—that their faces ache from laughing so much even as they are crying their hearts out. It is recognition not only well-deserved but long overdue.

I am enormously proud to present the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play of 2013, for Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, to the prodigiously talented Christopher Durang.

Halftitle

Vanya and Sonia

and Masha and Spike

Production Credits

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike was commissioned by McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, New Jersey and received its world premiere with previews beginning on September 7, 2012, and opening on September 14, 2012. Emily Mann, Artistic Director; Timothy J. Shields, Managing Director; Mara Isaacs, Producing Director. The production was directed by Nicholas Martin; scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Justin Townsend, original music and sound design by Mark Bennett, casting by Daniel Swee, assistant director was Bryan Hunt; the production stage manager was Cheryl Mintz. Director of Production was David York, Literary Director was Carrie Hughes, Associate Producer was Adam Immerwahr. McCarter Theatre Center coproduced the production with Lincoln Center Theater.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike received its New York City premiere at Lincoln Center Theater with previews beginning on October 25, 2012, and opening on November 12, 2012. Andre Bishop, Artistic Director; Bernard Gersten, Executive Producer; Adam Siegel, Managing Director in association with McCarter Theatre Center with previews beginning on October 25, 2012, and opened on November 12, 2012. The production was directed by Nicholas Martin; scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Justin Townsend, original music and sound design by Mark Bennett, casting by Daniel Swee; the dramaturg was Anne Cattaneo, and the stage manager was Jane Grey.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike moved to Broadway and played at the Golden Theatre in New York City with previews beginning on beginning on March 5, 2013, and opening on March 14, 2013. The play was produced by Joey Parnes, Larry Hirschhorn, and Joan Raffe/Jhett Tolentino, Martin Platt & David Elliott, Pat Flicker Addiss, Catherine Adler, John O’Boyle, Joshua Goodman, Jamie deRoy/Richard Winkler, Cricket Hooper Jiranek/Michael Palitz, Mark S. Golub & David S. Golub, Radio Mouse Entertainment, Shawdowcatcher Entertainment, Mary Cossette/Barbara Manocherian, Megan Savage/Meredith Lynsey Schade, Hugh Hysell/Richard Jordan, Cheryl Wiesenfeld/Ron Simons, S. D. Wagner, and John Johnson, in association with McCarter Theatre Center and Lincoln Center Theater.

The production was directed by Nicholas Martin, scenic design by David Korins, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Justin Townsend, original music and sound design by Mark Bennett, casting by Daniel Swee; the production stage manager was Denise Yaney, the stage manager was M. A. Howard, and the assistant director was Bryan Hunt.

The cast for all three productions was as follows (in order of appearance):

Vanya David Hyde Pierce

Sonia Kristine Nielsen

Cassandra Shalita Grant

Masha Sigourney Weaver

Spike Billy Magnussen

Nina Genevieve Angelson

Understudies: Keith Reddin (Vanya), Linda Marie Larson (Sonia, Masha), Heather Alicia Simms (Cassandra), Creed Garnick (Spike), Liesel Allen Yeager (Nina). (Miss Yeager played the role of Nina for part of the run.)

Characters

CHARACTERS

VANYA

50s, living in Bucks County. Resigned to his life, more or less, at least compared to Sonia.

SONIA

His adopted sister, early 50s, living with him in Bucks County. Discontent, upset, regretful.

MASHA

His sister, 50s, glamorous and successful actress who goes gallivanting around the world.

SPIKE

An aspiring actor, 29 or younger, sexy, self-absorbed, Masha’s new ­companion.

NINA

Lovely, sincere would-be actress, early 20s, visiting her aunt and uncle next door. Starstruck and energetic.

CASSANDRA

Cleaning lady and soothsayer, any age, any race. In the original production, she was played by an African American actress in her late 20s.

Set in the present, a lovely farmhouse in Bucks County.

ACT I

ACT I

Scene 1

A farmhouse in Bucks County, PA. Not enormous, but comfortable, on a hill, many trees, a barn nearby, a pond in the near distance. There used to be a shed for peacocks, but the peacocks are long gone.

The Morning Room. Sunny, a sitting place with a nice window and comfortable wicker chairs.

VANYA, 55 to 60, in a nightshirt, walks in, carrying coffee. He sits, staring out the window. Sips the coffee, which tastes good. He feels somewhat contented. He stares a bit more. SONIA enters, age 50 or so, with coffee for him. Perhaps has a diet soda for herself. She is unsure of herself, melancholy, though keeps hoping for impossible things.

SONIA I brought you coffee, dearest Vanya.

VANYA I have some.

SONIA Oh. But I bring you coffee every morning.

VANYA Well, yes, but you weren’t available.

SONIA Well, I was briefly in the bathroom, you couldn’t wait?

VANYA I don’t know. The coffee was made, you weren’t there, I’m capable of pouring coffee into a cup.

SONIA But I like bringing you coffee in the morning.

VANYA Fine. Here, take this cup and give me that one.

SONIA All right.

She hands him the coffee she’s brought; he hands her his partly finished cup.

SONIA Now I feel better.

VANYA I’m glad.

Sonia sits. They both look out, staring into the distance.

SONIA Has the blue heron been at the pond yet this morning?

VANYA Not yet. Or it was here before I was.

SONIA It’ll probably come later. It’s such a beautiful bird.

VANYA Yes, it is. (sips the coffee) I’m afraid the other cup tasted better.

SONIA Well it’s the same coffee.

VANYA Well maybe I put in more milk than you did. Maybe that’s why it tastes better.

SONIA Don’t I usually put in the right amount of milk?

VANYA Well, yes. I don’t usually think about it. It’s just that I was drinking one coffee, and liking it, and then suddenly there’s a different cup of coffee, and I’m liking it slightly less. It’s no big deal. I’m just making pleasant conversation.

SONIA That’s not making pleasant conversation. It’s first thing in the morning, and you’re implying I don’t do anything right.

VANYA I didn’t say that.

SONIA Yes, you did.

VANYA I didn’t.

SONIA Well you implied it.

VANYA Forget it! The coffee’s delicious, I love it!

SONIA Oh, for God’s sake. Here, take the original cup back.

VANYA No, no, it’s not that different. I’m sorry I said anything.

Sonia forces him to take his original coffee cup back, the one he preferred. She takes the second cup back herself.

SONIA I mean I have two pleasant moments every day in my fucking life, and one of them is bringing you coffee.

VANYA Sonia, I’m sorry I said anything. Really, the two cups are almost identical. I should have said nothing.

SONIA All right.

VANYA I’m sorry. Really.

SONIA That’s all right.

She suddenly takes the cup she’s holding and smashes it on the floor, in the direction of the kitchen. Silence.

VANYA Is this how you’re going to be today?

SONIA I don’t know what you mean.

VANYA YOU JUST THREW THE FUCKING COFFEE AGAINST THE WALL!

SONIA I DIDN’T!

VANYA You didn’t??? What kind of idiot response is that?

SONIA I don’t know. It’s an angry “I hate my life and I hate you” response.

VANYA Well, it was effective then, good for you!

SONIA Thank you!

Silence.

SONIA I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have thrown the cup.

VANYA That’s all right.

SONIA It’s just I had bad dreams last night.

VANYA Oh?

SONIA I dreamt I was 52 and I wasn’t married.

VANYA Were you dreaming in the documentary form?

SONIA That’s not funny.

VANYA Really, I thought it was. You are 52, and you’re not married.

SONIA Whose fault is that?

VANYA Is the answer supposed to be me?

SONIA There isn’t any answer. And if I pine for you, that’s my business.

VANYA Don’t pine for me. That’s ridiculous. I’m 57 and I’ve told you for many years, I’m not interested in you in that way. I . . . march to a different drummer.

SONIA Why must you march to a drummer at all? Why couldn’t we both . . . walk to the sounds of a piccolo?

VANYA What? I don’t know what that metaphor means. Besides, you’re my sister.

SONIA We’re not blood relations. I am your adopted sister. So I can pine if I want to.

VANYA Look, I think your pining after me is a tired reflex. I don’t think you even like me anymore.

SONIA I agree with you. It’s a reflex with me now. It comes from our living together. There’s no one else in the house. Ever since Mother and Father died. And Masha left me and you to take care of them while she was off gallivanting, having a life. Don’t you feel angry at Masha, that she’s had a life?

VANYA Yes, I do. But it’s too late now to do anything about it. I must say, I always admired you for doing your duty and taking care of our elderly parents, even though you were adopted. You put Masha to shame, in my opinion.

SONIA Thank you, I appreciate that.

VANYA Of course she had a successful acting career, and you basically didn’t have anything else to do.

SONIA Well, a moment ago you gave me a lovely compliment. And now . . . oh let’s not talk. I’ll keep my sadness to myself.

VANYA All right, you do that.

Brief silence. After a while she sighs very heavily, once, twice, maybe three times. Vanya ignores it for a while, but then doesn’t.

VANYA Your sadness is very heavy this morning, Sonia. Can you lighten it any?

SONIA No.

VANYA Could you go to a different room?

SONIA Leave the morning room? But I’m in mourning for my life.

VANYA I hope you’re not going to make Chekhov references all day.

SONIA If they come up, I may.

VANYA It’s been our cross to bear that our parents gave us names from Chekhov plays. The other children made such fun of us with our mysterious names. Such was the burden of having two professor parents; and so active in community theater as well. Remember how good they were in The Reluctant Debutante? I don’t think they were very good in the Oresteia, though, did you?

SONIA No. But I don’t think community theater should do Greek tragedy.

VANYA I don’t either. Having professors for parents had its drawbacks. Father was so angry when you didn’t know something. But what 7-year-old knows who wrote The Imaginary Invalid? Father became so enraged when I said Neil Simon. I mean, I was 7.

SONIA And they were very, very difficult once they went mental in old age. Oh but when they were young, how wonderful our parents were, don’t you think? Mother was so elegant. And Father showed affection for me often; he called me his little artichoke.

VANYA And he liked artichokes. So it was probably a nice thing he called you that.

SONIA Yes, I think so. And he never molested me.

VANYA That’s nice.

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