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.
