By Emily R. Zarevich, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
It’s a beautiful, balmy summer morning. The wide windows open upon a lush countryside landscape, with a sapphire-blue pond and an assortment of cherry trees in full bloom. The world is still, and there are no pressing obligations or commitments to attend to. All the fundamental elements are in place for a perfectly peaceful, perfectly uneventful morning. It’s the ideal setup to sip coffee at leisure, paint a picture, listen to music, or discuss literature, right?
Wrong.
On Friday, April 17, 2026, Village Theatre Waterdown premiered its much-anticipated production of Christopher Durang’s dramatic comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Directed by Jaclyn Scobie and produced by Deb Koehler, it’s an ambitious undertaking for a community centre: two-and-a-half demanding hours for the actors, as Durang’s intense script has them emotionally unravelling, breaking down from the sheer frustration of thwarted aspirations, exploding into arguments, and even at one point trying to put on a play within a play in a desperate attempt to create something worthwhile out of the mess of their lives.
Siblings Vanya and Sonia (played by Nicholas Banks and Deb Dagenais) can’t even get to the bottom of their coffee cups in the morning before they’re at each other’s throats, a toxic domestic routine that has had them trapped in their homestead for years. Middle-aged, bored senseless, restless, and bitter, the pair have no jobs, no love lives, no social lives, and nothing else to do except bicker about inconsequential matters. Every day is the same day, and they’re miserable.
Raised by artistic, thespian parents, they should have been set up for a lifetime of bohemian creative fulfillment, having been named after characters from classic Russian writer Anton Chekhov’s body of work. They live in a lovely house (stage set) full of books, designed by Deb Koehler and crew. Since the bills are covered by their wealthy sister Masha, they have all the free time in the world to pursue their goals. But they’ve remained stuck in a stale, stifling time capsule, in which the only injections of life are the wild rantings and ravings of their hammy cleaning lady (played by Kimberly Jonasson), who fancies herself a psychic and something like a witch.
Then in comes Masha (played by Christine Hopkins), a glamorous movie star who seems to have it all: fame, money, and a vigorous young lover named Spike (played by Dante Casini). Masha appears outwardly confident but is in fact terribly insecure, fearing old age and crumbling under the belief that she sold herself out too cheaply to the film industry when she could have made it as a highly respected theatre actress. Her dream role, never played? Masha in Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
Hopkins brilliantly plays the character of Durang’s Masha as such an uptight control freak that it can even be argued that Masha’s true, unrealized calling was to be a director, so eager is she to micromanage and arrange everyone’s lives around her. Her beau, Spike, an aspiring actor — key word “aspiring” — has big dreams, too, but little to show for it despite his good looks and efforts. Casini plays him as so vain and self-absorbed that the character is barely present in the drama unfolding all around him.
Added to the mix is the sweet and naïve would-be actress Nina, played by Jamiel Recta, making her official debut on the Village Theatre Waterdown stage. An optimistic admirer of Masha and a ready friend of Vanya and Sonia, Nina’s presence is the breath of fresh air the unhappy household dynamic desperately needs. Recta seems a bit nervous in her first role, but it suits the character just fine, as poor, defenseless Nina is thrown into a lion’s den of several middle-aged crises playing out at once.
The play is rife with tension as the three feuding siblings, Vanya, Sonia, and Masha, battle for attention and a trophy for “most dutiful offspring” that doesn’t exist. Masha is burned out from footing the bills for a house she doesn’t even live in and wants to sell. Vanya and Sonia don’t have essential life skills, having sacrificed their working years to look after their aging parents. They don’t have a safety net. Everyone is angry. Everyone is jealous of each other. Everyone is resentful. At one point (spoiler alert), Vanya has a meltdown of epic proportions, masterfully acted out by Banks, who plays Vanya as a peacekeeper who unhealthily suppresses his disappointments and vulnerabilities. Audience members will worry for the state of Vanya’s sanity as his unleashed rage goes on and on.
Costume designer Joy Aubin puts special effort into outfitting the cast as grown adults acting like a bunch of children. For a significant chunk of the play, they even have to dress up as fairytale characters for a costume party. The Disney-esque ensembles Aubin provides for them really emphasize their immaturity, especially Masha’s. Hopkins, as Masha, dresses up as Snow White, Disney’s canonically most youthful princess, and looks appropriately ridiculous. She is clinging to the last remaining strands of her own youth for dear life.
Dagenais’s Sonia is given a rare opportunity to outshine her sister in an elegant lavender frock with opera gloves and sequins, a unique take on the Evil Queen that doesn’t please Masha. For the first time, Sonia gets to play a role and proves to be a natural at it, surprising even herself. Everybody has a creative soul, and sometimes it just takes the right boost of confidence to bring it out. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike reflects what happens when creative energy isn’t properly exercised.
Performances of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will continue on at Village Theatre Waterdown until Sunday, May 3, 2026. Village Theatre Waterdown’s ticket provider is the Burlington Performing Arts Centre, and tickets can be bought directly on BPAC’s website. After Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike say farewell to the stage, Village Theatre Waterdown will throw itself into preparations for its production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a tale of a manmade, laboratory-manufactured horror that has enthralled audiences for centuries.
