Vanya and the Rise of Realism
An important point: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is NOT a play by Anton Chekhov.
If it were, you might expect pastoral Russian ennui, long names, little action, and use of the word “classic” in all marketing materials. The show would likely be very boring. Believe me: only people who really love Chekhov know how to not make it boring.
Christopher Durang, the actual playwright of Vanya and Sonia, was one of those people. Anyone who ever did a high school one-act festival in the 90s knows Durang very well; he was one of the funniest and most accessible playwrights of his time, and he convinced non-theatre people that an evening in an auditorium could be an unforgettable time. He took a pretentious art form and made it crackle for everyone.
Chekhov was a similar figure in his time. Prior to the late 1800s, theatre was largely a presentational art, lofty and melodramatic, an indication of humanity rather than an authentic representation. During his brief career, cut short by a too-early death, Chekhov wrote 4 bangers—The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard—that reinvented theatre for the people. Instead of an impressive thing that left audiences cold, theatre could be a tool for showing “life as it is.” In other words, it could be believable. It could be real.
In theatre and film, we take realism for granted now, and we even knock a movie when we decide “it wasn’t very realistic.” You could argue that this 1.25-century-long taste emerged from Chekhov. Prior to his plays, realism wasn’t a virtue or even a possibility. Afterwards, it became the assumption.
What does this mean for you all as you prepare for Vanya and Sonia? Durang’s swan song, the winner of the 2013 Tony for Best Play, is a beloved contemporary comedy that ends DCP’s 60th Season on a note of laughter, warmth, and genuine humanity. The premise is goofy yet relatable; three middle-aged siblings in crisis gather at their idyllic Pennsylvania home for a reckoning of who’s stuck and who has succeeded. Two young outsiders—the shimmering Nina and the hunky Spike—make our siblings feel both worse and more alive in all sorts of recognizable ways.
You will have a glorious time at this play and will be smiling for days. You do not need to know all the context I’ve shared, but you may enjoy a basic awareness that, beneath the confines of a friendly, easygoing comedy, two playwrights from different centuries are conversing about what makes our art form eternal and essential. They are agreeing, over a celestial samovar and a shot of vodka, that it’s the people who make all the difference.