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theatre review

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike may be a padded-out parody, but it has enough pleasurable moments like this to justify its existence in director Dean Paul Gibson’s poppy production (which comes to the off-Mirvish season in Toronto via the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg).Jeremie Andrew

Fiona Reid is the best, the absolute best. It's hard to think of a comedienne in the world funnier than Reid when she's firing on all cylinders, as she is playing an aging singleton in love with her self-pity in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

Maggie Smith, you may say? But wait: In Christopher Durang's Tony-winning comedy, you can get the two for the price of one. An extended sequence sees Reid's Sonia disguise herself as Maggie Smith for a costume party – and the resulting double exposure had the audience doubled over in laughter. You get dotty Reid, and dripping-with-disdain Reid, in a single performance.

To be precise, Sonia gets dressed up as the Oscar nominee that Smith played in the 1978 Neil Simon movie, California Suite – so what you get is a very funny actress playing a character impersonating a very funny actress playing an actress. It's like a comic version of Inception: A scream within a scream within a scream.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike may be a padded-out parody, but it has enough pleasurable moments like this to justify its existence in director Dean Paul Gibson's poppy production (which comes to the off-Mirvish season in Toronto via the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg).

Vanya (Steven Sutcliffe) and Sonia (Reid) are two middle-aged siblings, living in the country house where they took care of their literature-professor parents for many years. While they did so, Masha (Jennifer Dale), their sister, pursued her dreams and became a famous actress – but also sent money home to support the family. Nevertheless, tensions erupt when Masha returns home for the costume party with a boy-toy named Spike (Luke Humphrey) in tow and threatening to sell the home.

You've probably noticed all the Chekhovian names at this point – Vanya, Sonia, Masha… There's a girl-next-door named Nina (Ellen Denny), as well. We're also on a crumbling estate with a cherry orchard (well, nine cherry trees), and while Sonia doesn't go around saying she's a seagull (like Nina in The Seagull), she does come to this oddball epiphany: "I am a wild turkey!"

In short, Durang's comedy is inspired by the great plays of Anton Chekhov – and he's not exactly subtle in his allusions. "I hope you're not going to make Chekhov references all day," Sonia snaps at Vanya at once point, in a line that I suppose is meant to circumvent criticism.

And yet, if you name one of your characters Vanya, and then another character comes in and asks to call him "uncle," does that really qualify as funny? Durang's humour employs so much circular logic that it's like a comic corollary to the fallacy of begging the question – that is to say, he writes a lot of jokes where the punchline is included in the set-up.

Durang's writing may be shallowness dressed up in smarty pants, but there's enough verve here for the cast to elevate the material – and Reid works overtime to make the biggest turkeys fly, even while she gives the character of Sonia a poignant arc from mock-Chekhovian ennui to something approaching contentment.

Second best is the young actor Luke Humphrey as Spike – who ends up as the most likeable of the characters, despite being a vain womanizer who is constantly stripping down to his underwear. His deadpan delivery of nearly every lunkhead line is delicious – and, at one point, he does a reverse striptease that is a perfect piece of physical comedy.

Denny is charming as the kind-hearted Nina, while Audrey Dwyer fully commits to the most annoying character – a maid named Cassandra who is constantly foretelling disaster like, well, a Cassandra. (Durang, again, begging the punchline.)

Both Dale and Sutcliffe have their moments as Masha and Vanya, even if their schtick – older woman lusting after a younger man; semi-closeted older man lusting after a younger man – is a little too similar.

Sutcliffe gets an epic speech at the climax of the play, set off by Spike's inappropriate texting, in which he rails against kids these days and bemoans the loss of the shared culture of The Ed Sullivan Show. As far as tour-de-forces go, it's a fairly incoherent one – but he earns applause for having memorized the whole meandering muddle.

Ultimately, Sonia and Vanya and Masha and Spike will be much more enjoyable if you forget about Chekhov – as Durang does in the second half, ditching what was shaping up to be a four-act structure for a series of shorter sitcom scenes. There is simply no tragic here to go with the comic – and there certainly isn't a rifle hanging on the wall, looming over the action. Instead, a group hug hovers and, sure enough, goes off at the end.

Sonia and Vanya and Masha and Spike continues to April 5. Visit mirvish.com for tickets and times.

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