By Carrie Chapter, Philadelphia Theatre Company

It is not every day that a lauded playwright pays more than one visit to a regional production of a Tony Award-winning play. For the PTC production of the side-splitting comedy, VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE, playwright Christopher Durang was kind enough to come in to not only the rehearsal room, but also to be the guest of honor for our American Playwrights in Context series, where he participated in an onstage interview with Howard Sherman, only to proceed to another informal chat with donors and board members afterwards.

Regarding this particular play, Mr. Durang endures a repetitive line of questioning wherever it is produced: It’s a parody of a Chekhov play, right? This assumption led me to include the following in the program notes:

“Disclaimer: The play you are about to witness is not a parody of the works of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Any resemblance to Chekhovian characters, in carriage or attitude, is dependent on the interpretation (and post-adolescent memory) of the individual theatergoer. This, however, is not to say that the play is not beholden to particular references to Chekhov plays. In fact, the allusions to Chekhov function much like the myriad of cultural influences found in the world of the play. This could be likened to how some media and popular attractions contain “Easter eggs,” which are defined as hidden messages, extra features, or insider jokes located in films, books, crossword puzzles or computer games (or like scavenging for the “hidden Mickeys” at the Disney theme parks.) If you are looking for them, it gives you an edge to your experience, but, if you are unaware or not on the hunt for the “eggs,” it does not diminish the value nor your enjoyment of the event itself.”

Bad metaphors aside, this is the world of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – a comedic journey of its own making, unique in its brand of whimsy.

At the heart of this play is a family rejoined – warts and all. Like a fractured fairy tale, there is no perfect family and happy endings are as elusive as feelings of satisfaction in a Chekhov play. Siblings, too, test and measure how much (or, more likely, how little) we have grown up over the years. There is an apt quotation from Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”: “It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.” In abiding within the inescapable nature of family life, there is the inevitable comedy. Humor is the solvent in making daily life digestible. After all, as you will discover in this play, no one really is Snow White, or the Prince, or even the Evil Queen – with our charming foibles, we are all dwarfs, and we live quirkily ever after.

Playwright Christopher Durang meets the PTC cast of VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE. Photo credit: Rose Schnall.