Spike won’t zip his zipper up all the way. Not just yet.

“I’m going to leave the zipper a little undone because I know I’m going to tuck my shirt in when I get to putting that on,” said Spike, a character in the play “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” seductively after putting his pants on.

The character then stands on some furniture, grinning and winking as he drags his belt back and forth between his crotch.

Scenes like this ensured that no more than a few minutes passed without audience members laughing in their seats during the show, which opened on Friday. “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” kicked off Syracuse Stage’s 42nd season and will run through Oct. 12. The comedy was written by Christopher Durang and won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play.

The scene with Ben Chase, who plays Spike, doing his reverse striptease was no exception, as the crowd cheered and whistled as he waved his shirt in the air in a circular motion.

“The script only has the lines,” Chase said after the play. “It gives us actors the chance to really find the character and do really fun things with it.”

The fairytale, cottage-like stage design complemented the setting of rural, modern-day Pennsylvania. Larry Paulsen plays the practical-minded Vanya, who is more or less resigned to his life and lives with his adopted sister Sonia, played by Dori Legg. Sonia is frustrated and regretful at the unsatisfying life she’s lived.

It’s not until their narcissistic sister, Masha — a washed up Hollywood actress — visits their home with her much younger boy-toy Spike, that their uneventful lives are shaken up.

Masha announces she wants to sell their childhood home, which comes as a shock to Vanya and Sonia. The two spend the remainder of the play trying to convince Masha to change her mind, and in the process of contemplating their futures, all of them realize that change is necessary to appreciate the past.

“(Masha) goes through her monster phase in the beginning, but she realizes how much she loves her family,” said Nance Williamson, who plays Masha, in an interview after the play. “I love everything about her character, even the monster phase.”

Other than the main roles, the cast includes only two more characters. Lisa Renee Pitts plays Cassandra, Vanya and Sonia’s psychic housekeeper, and Midori Iwama rounds up the cast as Nina, a young aspiring actress who worships Masha’s B-list career.

“Just playing and acting with my castmates and the director has been great,” Iwama said. “There are obstacles sometimes, but you know, we work hard and we play hard.”

Sophomore acting major Alex Griffin, who attended Friday’s performance, said his favorite part of the performance was when Sonia received a phone call from Joe, a man she met at a party, asking her out to dinner.

“It was very human and genuine,” Griffin said. “I could just imagine what it was like on the other end of the phone call because it felt real.”

Legg said she tried to stay in the moment while performing that scene as Sonia. She described the phone call as “a window to Sonia’s life,” as Sonia had never experienced anything as simple as a man asking her to dinner.

“It’s something that she’s kept squashed inside of her that people now start to see change,” Legg said after the play. “It was like oxygen for her.”

Like Griffin, sophomore musical theater major Tristen Buettel said she loved Sonia’s phone call scene, saying that Legg portrayed the human feel elegantly.

But she also added that the play, though it kept her laughing all night long, hit some thought-provoking points.

“It makes you really stop and think about things that make you want to take on the world,” Buettel said.

She was referring to Paulsen’s monologue toward the end of the play when Vanya, who is afraid of the changes happening both in society and in his life, exploded into an impromptu speech.

Full of ‘50s references to shows such as “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” and “Howdy Doody,” Paulsen’s monologue was characterized by his disappointment in today’s society, a longing for the past and the constant fear of change.

“We licked postage stamps,” the actor repeated during the performance. “We ate Spam, just like the soldiers in World War II did. We didn’t play video games in some virtual reality, where we would kill policemen and prostitutes as if that was some sort of entertainment.”

Because of the ‘50s and ‘60s references, particularly in Vanya’s speech, Williamson, who plays Masha, said there might be things that younger audience members don’t understand that older generations do. But she added that everyone can relate to the idea that change is sometimes very scary.

“It reminds us to never give up hope,” Williamson said. “As imperfect as it is, the past is still beautiful.”

Published on September 29, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Clare: clramire@syr.edu