By David Greenham

Despite its undeniable fun, Christopher Durang’s play feels somewhat quaint a decade or so since it was written.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang. Directed by Rebecca Bradshaw. Scenic design by Kristin Loeffler. Costume design by Chelsea Kerl. Lighting design by Anshuman Bhatia. Sound design by Melanie Chen Cole. Properties design by Emme Shaw. Staged by Gloucester Stage, Gloucester, through June 23.

Adrianne Krstansky, Diego Arciniegas, and Wendy Waring in the Gloucester Stage Company production of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Photo: Jason Grow

The late Christopher Durang’s Tony-award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike became a bit of a surprise hit a little over a decade ago. This pleasing, genially absurdist comedy made the rounds to regional theaters in nearly every city in the country, including the Huntington, Trinity Rep in Providence, and New Hampshire’s Peterborough Playhouse.

The names of siblings Vanya (Diego Arciniegas), Sonia (Adrianne Krsansky), and Masha (Wendy Waring) — all in their 50s when the play begins — were the result of parental joking around. Both college professors, the couple named their kids after characters in Chekhov’s dramas and filled their youth with quotes and quips from the Russian master. Even Sonia, who is adopted, didn’t escape the family curse. Predictably, the characters are tied to a family property, their family home in the countryside — in this case, bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania (where Durang lived). At this point, Vanya and Sonia are little more than squatters in the family home.

The tale begins with a visit from Masha, a fading B-movie star who pays all the bills. Familial angst is immediately unfurled. All three are stuck, dreaming about what might have been as they face the sunset of their lives. Durang adds to the silliness of the faux-Chekhovian premise by introducing a young and optimistic visiting neighbor, Nina (Valyn Lyric Turner), an aspiring actress like her namesake from The Seagull.

True to Durangian — rather than Chekhovian — fashion, there are numerous zany twists. Masha has brought along her latest boy toy, Spike (Jaime José Hernández), a much younger aspiring actor who is more bulk than brain. The comedic enterprise takes a further step toward the ridiculous with the introduction of Greek tragedy by way of a bizarre cleaning woman, Cassandra (Eryn O’Sullivan), who predicts trouble at every opportunity. She proclaims at her entrance, “Portents of dismay and calamity yawn beneath the yonder cliff. O fools looking behind but not looking ahead, dost thou not sense thy attendant doom?”

To which Vanya replies: “Cassandra, I have asked you repeatedly to please just say ‘good morning,’ alright?”

Sonia waits to spot a nonappearing blue heron at the pond and wallows in her surefire depression. Vanya seems resigned to his life as a writer who seldom puts pen to paper. The surprise visit by Masha shakes up the house’s dull routine. “Sweetest Vanya, dearest Sonia. How I’ve missed you,” she gushes with indifference, “You both look the same. Older. Sadder. But the same.”

Cassandra breaks the melancholic spell with her declaration to “Beware of Hootie Pie.” Vanya and Sonia assume this is yet another crazy pronouncement, but Masha is shaken. Hootie Pie is her assistant — “and completely devoted to me,” she declares.

The action shifts further toward the bizarre when Masha announces that she’s been invited to a neighborhood costume party. She wants everyone else to support her dressing up as Snow White. But no Chekhovian-inspired tale would be complete without a character’s revelatory soliloquy, and Vanya supplies it with a longing reminiscence of simpler days gone by when his world was filled with scrabble, Ozzie and Harriet, and the Mickey Mouse Club. He decries cell phones, video games, and our 785 TV channels. Vanya pines for the days when there was “a shared memory between us.”

The ode to Ozzie and Harriet is a giveaway. Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike is rooted in the tame world of situation comedy, not provocative farce. That said, the script is filled with funny lines, and the Gloucester Stage cast members sink their teeth into them with aplomb. As the siblings, Arciniegas, Krstansky, and Waring embody Durang’s humane lunacy with admirable skill. Krstansky, in particular, demonstrates pinpoint timing, coming up with a deadpan stare that memorably conveys the dead-end life of her Sonia.

Hernández mines Spike for all the show-horse laughs he can, despite the character’s tangential presence. Likewise, Turner’s Nina is appropriately sweet and earnest, even if her character is more functionary than functional. O’Sullivan jumps with both feet into Cassandra’s oddities, although her spin on a “New Yawk” accent sometimes gets in her way.

Gloucester Stage artistic director Rebecca Bradshaw clearly loves the play and knows that it is key to keep the action moving along. Her choice to revive Durang’s script demonstrates her commitment to finding a balance between productions of plays that provoke and putting on light, escapist material that appeals to Gloucester’s loyal Cape Ann crowd.

Scenic designer Kristin Loeffler and prop designer Emme Shaw have come up with a fabulous set, festooned with knickknacks and tchotchkes that are always fun to look at. Chelsea Kerl is up to the task with her costumes, especially the over-the-top party garb.

Still, despite its fun, Durang’s play feels somewhat quaint a decade or so since it was written. Given the current chaos of climate crisis mega storms, MAGA, Jan 6, Covid, and so much more, Vanya, Sonia, Masha, and Spike comes off as nostalgic fare worthy of the 785 TV channels, not the bold stroke (at least to some critics) of satiric commentary that won praise in 2012.

As Masha notes at the end of Vanya’s diatribe about days gone by, “I think I need to take a walk by the pond and digest the entirety of the last 15 minutes. And maybe the last 15 years.” We now have shared experiences that cut deeper than pop culture of the ’50s and ’60s. And they are much harder to digest. In fact, they are making us sick. Contrary to Masha, we aren’t that crazy about going to Moscow. But, given the uncertainty of our future, staying home doesn’t look particularly appealing either.

David Greenham is an arts and culture consultant, adjunct lecturer on Drama at the University of Maine at Augusta, and is the former executive director of the Maine Arts Commission. He can be found at https://davidgreenham.com/