BCP's: Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike

[kitmerlot_1213]

On Saturday, I saw the excellent Chrisopher Durang play Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike at the Bucks County Playhouse and overall, it was wonderful.I say that because overall, the actors were outstanding:  Marilu Henner was the big name star and she and her four costars were all gifted performers and they brought the play to life.  The play was extremely well written and I liked that there was a dark comic thread through every scene but it also ended on a hopeful note.  The only bad part was that the playwright, Chrisopher Durang, decided he wanted to play the role of Vanya and he is an awful actor.  He spoke his lines without any inflection and at one point he forgot his speech and he had to call off stage for someone to feed him his line.  How absolutely embarrassing for him and his costars.

Comments

[apeygirl.livejournal.com]

That kind of breaks my heart! I adore Durang as a playwright and hate to think of him not having the self-awareness to know he wasn't going to nail the part or wasn't prepared.

[kitmerlot1213.livejournal.com]

In the playbill, the Bucks County Playhouse mentioned that Thornton Wilder once played the narrator in a production of Our Town and they thought that was so cool, so they wanted Durang to do that too. I guess it didn't occur to anyone that maybe he was a better playwright than actor.