REVIEW: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at the Charing Cross Theatre

The overwhelming sensation I got from my two hours and twenty in Charing Cross Theatre, was nostalgia, but the good kind. The nostalgia that feels like a hug, the kind that feels like a Nora Ephron movie. We enter an open stage with a cosy house set, squishy Ephron esque interior, the lighting feeling like a warm autumnal glow over the wooden house. You can almost smell the pine and coffee. It's everything a British person would assume that prolific American period felt like. 

As most Chekhovian plays are, Vanya (et al) is about everything and nothing. The action plays out in one room over around 48 hours, and we see our characters drink coffee, talk about soup, clean the house, and prepare for a party. But the characters are what drive the piece, as well as Christopher Durangs’ frothy, quick script. 

We see Masha return home to see her siblings, after a busy time in New York being fabulous, although we quickly discover the real reason she is in town is to show her face at a ‘famous people only’ party and to assess their childhood home, which she bankrolls for her brother and sister. Masha, the successful actress sister, is played masterfully by Janie Dee, giving us desperation and insecurity below her glamour and command. Her brother and adopted sister, Vanya and Sonia, are found to be just existing at home, watching the garden for the heron each morning. 

REVIEW: If You Love Me, This Might Hurt at the Camden People's Theatre

It’s a very impressive feat to stand up for an hour and talk about your own trauma and experiences in an engaging way that doesn’t feel like a Ted Talk. This is what Matty May has achieved with ‘If You Love Me This Might Hurt’. 

We enter, and immediately it’s clear that this is a ‘safe space’, if you’ll excuse the hackneyed term. Bright coloured pieces of paper with odd words scrawled on them on the back wall, and a squishy armchair making up the set, it’s clear this isn’t going to be a dark affair of suicide and trauma. Except really, that’s exactly what it is. 

We travel through Matty Mays thirty-something years with them, learning of their fears, insecurities, and most formative experiences, shaping and steering them towards the difficult choices they made when they were at the lowest points of their life. I hesitate to write about their very personal story, as it's not mine to share but will take my cue from May, who opened the show stating that they feel safe enough to talk about their own self-harm, so we should feel safe enough to watch. They share with us their three attempts to die by suicide.