conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a plot for a book about Sonia, Masha, Vanya entitled Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike: Middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia live in the family home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.\nNamed after Chekhov\'s characters by their theater-enthusiast professor parents, Vanya and Sonia have not had to grow up.\nAfter spending their adulthood looking after their now-dead parents, neither has a job, and money is provided by their movie star sister Masha, who owns the house and pays the bills.\nVanya (who is gay) and Sonia (who is forever reminding everyone that she was adopted) spend their days reflecting on their lost chances, debating whether the grove of nine cherry trees on their property constitutes an orchard, and bemoaning their rather Chekhovian lot in life.\nThe only other resident of the house is their cleaning woman Cassandra, who, like her namesake, is prone to making dire prophecies that no one believes.\nThis static environment is disrupted when Masha returns home, bringing with her a flurry of drama, an endless litany of insecurity, and a much younger, gorgeous, dimwitted lover named Spike.\nSonia\'s resentments and Masha\'s competitive nature begin to spark arguments, and while Vanya tries to keep the peace, he is repeatedly distracted by the preening Spike, who takes every opportunity possible to strip down and show off his muscular body.\nMasha\'s fifth marriage has recently ended and her career is starting to stall.\nSpike\'s career has never started, and his biggest claim to fame is nearly landing a part in the sequel to Entourage, Entourage 2.\nAnother interloper arrives, the neighbor\'s pretty niece Nina, an aspiring actress who provokes envy in Masha, lust in Spike, and sympathy in Vanya.\nMasha has returned home to attend a costume party at an influential neighbor\'s house and insists that her friends and family dress as characters from Disney\'s animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, choosing to dress as Snow White.\nWhen told she will be going as one of the dwarfs, Sonia rebels and dresses up as the Evil Queen, imagining her as portrayed by Maggie Smith on her way to the Oscars.\nAs they prepare for the party, Masha tells them she intends to sell the house, leaving Vanya and Sonia devastated.\nThings come to a head the day after the party.\nAs Cassandra uses a voodoo doll on Masha, trying to dissuade thoughts of selling the house, Sonia receives a phone call from a man she met at the party, requesting a date.\nHesitantly, she accepts.\nVanya, who is secretly writing a play inspired by Konstantin\'s imagined symbolist drama in The Seagull, is convinced by Nina to let her read it in front of the others.\nDuring the reading (which stars Nina as a molecule and takes place after the destruction of the earth), Spike rudely answers a text on his phone, and dismisses Vanya\'s suggestion of a handwritten response.\nVanya reacts by launching into an impassioned rant, criticizing America\'s cultural regression in communication and media, while fondly and wistfully recalling the surroundings and memories of his childhood.\nConcluding that the intent of such progress seems to make people like him feel lost and forgotten, he retreats into the kitchen in tears.\nMasha realizes that the person Spike is texting is her personal assistant, with whom he has been having an affair.\nShe ends her relationship with him and kicks him out of the house, announcing she no longer intends to sell it.\nAs the play ends, the three siblings, optimistic for the first time in a very long time, sit quietly together and listen to The Beatles\' song "Here Comes the Sun".
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
  I have a new play that is being co-produced in the fall by McCarter Theatre and Lincoln Center. It's called. It's not a parody; it's set in the present in Bucks County. Vanya and Masha are brother and sister, and Sonia is their adopted sister. They were given those names by their professor parents, who are now dead. But in some ways they do resemble Chekhov characters. I like to say the play takes Chekhovian characters and themes and puts them in a blender. The play is funny, but has genuine emotion in it as well. Nicky Martin is to direct. Sigourney W will be Masha, Kristine Nielsen, Sonia.
  Chris asked if I would read the play, and if I would play Vanya, and I did both those things, and I'm so glad I did. It's a very funny play, and a field day for the actors in all six roles. It is also richly layered, and its odd mix of contemporary references with Chekhovian themes and language creates a uniquely Durangian world.
  The opening is a good example of what I'm talking about. It takes place in the morning room of a country house—a very Chekhovian setting, though this happens to be in Pennsylvania:
  The first line could be straight from Chekhov, the last line definitely isn't. In five lines Chris reveals the relationship between the siblings, and establishes the world of the play. I read those lines, and I was hooked.
  Chris actually wrote the character of Masha for his longtime pal and collaborator Sigourney Weaver, and he wrote Sonia for Kristine Nielsen, another dear friend and a veteran of Chris's plays. I mention this so you'll know, as you read, that the voices and the style of performance weren't exaggerated or extreme—the roles were played by actors who inhabited them easily. The younger actors—Billy Magnussen, Shalita Grant, and Genevieve Angelson—were, to quote Masha, "pretty and luminous and full of youthful hope and enthusiasm." They were also very gifted and highly skilled, and played their characters as people, not caricatures.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Enter Sonia. She is in a sparkling sequin gown that takes over the room. She's wearing glittering earrings, bracelets and a tiara. She looks very good. It might be a beautiful, strong turquoise color. She doesn't look like the Evil Queen in Snow White. But she does look good.
  SONIA (in a Maggie Smith voice) Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all? Is it me, Sidney? Tonight, let it be me.
  SONIA (her regular voice) I'm the Evil Queen from Snow White, as played by Maggie Smith on the way to the Oscars.
  MASHA Well, Maggie Smith has nothing to do with... oh, never mind, I give up, it's fine. You're the Evil Queen, that's what I'll tell everyone.
  SONIA (in Maggie Smith voice) As played by Maggie Smith about to win an Oscar. Oh, Sidney, do you think I'll win? I already have one Oscar for Miss Jean Brodie—(does her Maggie Smith voice with Scotland accent) "Little gels, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders"—(back to the core Maggie Smith voice)—but it would be lovely to win a second Oscar, my first one is so lonely on the mantelpiece. Do you agree, Sidney? Will I win tonight? Tonight let it be me, Sidney.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Enter Sonia. She is in a sparkling sequin gown that takes over the room. She's wearing glittering earrings, bracelets and a tiara. She looks very good. It might be a beautiful, strong turquoise color. She doesn't look like the Evil Queen in Snow White. But she does look good.
  SONIA (in a Maggie Smith voice) Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all? Is it me, Sidney? Tonight, let it be me.
  SONIA (her regular voice) I'm the Evil Queen from Snow White, as played by Maggie Smith on the way to the Oscars.
  MASHA Well, Maggie Smith has nothing to do with... oh, never mind, I give up, it's fine. You're the Evil Queen, that's what I'll tell everyone.
  SONIA (in Maggie Smith voice) As played by Maggie Smith about to win an Oscar. Oh, Sidney, do you think I'll win? I already have one Oscar for Miss Jean Brodie—(does her Maggie Smith voice with Scotland accent) "Little gels, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders"—(back to the core Maggie Smith voice)—but it would be lovely to win a second Oscar, my first one is so lonely on the mantelpiece.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: SONIA I know. I never meet anyone, I don't think I've been to a party in 20 years. It's encouraging but of course I mustn't get my hopes up.
  NINA I have so loved meeting you both. Dear Sonia, dear Uncle Vanya. I am going to come out to visit my aunt and uncle more often, so I can see you both.
  SONIA Yes, she is nice. Although I can only stand a little bit of people wondering how to play a molecule.
  VANYA Oh look, she forgot her music playing thing. (picks it up, music starts to play) Oh I turned it on. How do you turn it off?
  They all three stare out the window. Their bodies start to move, idiosyncratically but in rhythm, with the music. Lights dim. End of play.