By K. Michael Moore
Photos By Lily-Allen Duenas
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| The company of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike |
I’m going to confess something: I adore intimate staging in theater. I love black boxes, church basements, stage seating, and all of the oddball found space work that goes on. If you haven’t seen a show at Old Creamery Theater’s Studio Stage, Christopher Durang’s
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike would be a great production with which to start. Literally the Amana Middle School’s band rehearsal room, converted with a carefully crafted set and rounded thrust stage,
VSMS isn’t performed, it simply and profoundly exists… right in front of your nose.
VSMS presents the story of Vanya (Patrick Du Laney) and his (adopted) sister, Sonia (Marquetta Senters). Having cared for their now deceased parents, who were aged professors with a penchant for Chekhov, Vanya and Sonia are in the long-term process of lamenting their lack of having lived. Middle aged now, and without the sympathetic mission of being home caregivers, Vanya and Sonia have little to occupy their time, save staring out at the pond and bickering with one another.
