The next production from Boots on the Ground Theater, the company founded by Bonnie Grice in 2016, is Christopher Durang’s comedy “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” whose Broadway run in 2013 earned it Tony and Drama Desk Awards for best play. The play will open a three-week run at the Southampton Cultural Center Friday at 7 p.m.
The comedy is set in Bucks County, Pa., where two middle-aged siblings, Vanya, who is gay, and Sonia, who is adopted, live in the family home. Neither has a job, and money is provided by Masha, their movie star sister, who owns the house and pays the bills. (Their Chekhovian names were provided by their now dead professor parents.)
The environment is disrupted when Masha returns home with a much younger boy toy named Spike. Arguments ensue between Sonia and Masha, while Vanya tries to keep the peace, but tensions escalate when Masha threatens to sell the country house (which happens to have a cherry orchard).
The siblings leave the house to attend a Disney-themed party, Masha having made her friends and family dress as characters from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and claiming the role of Snow White herself. The day after the party, Cassandra, their cleaning woman, uses a voodoo doll on Masha, trying to dissuade her from selling the house.
As for Chekhov, Durang told Playbill, “My play is not a Chekhov parody. I’ve been saying that I take Chekhov scenes and characters and put them into a blender. It’s my hope you don’t have to know Chekhov super-well to enjoy it.”
The cultural center production is directed by Bob Kaplan, a Long Island theater veteran who also helmed the company’s 2024 production of “It’s Only a Play.” The cast includes Randall Hemming as Vanya, Ms. Grice as Sonia, Alyson Friedman as Masha, Thaddeus C. Plezia as Spike, Kristin Dougherty as Cassandra, and Leah Kerensky as Nina, the niece of a neighbor.
Performances will take place Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. through Oct. 26. Tickets are $35, $25 for students under 21, plus fees.
