More "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" Beefcake

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a 2012 play about two middle-aged siblings living in one of those Chekhov plays about nouveau-poor aristocrats struggling to survive financially on a doddering estate (it doesn't matter which one -- they're basically all like that).  Their movie-star younger sister arrives with her boytoy Spike, who strips to his unmentionables and draws everyone's erotic interest.

It won't be playing on the high school circuit anytime soon, but it's popular in colleges and community theaters.  The trick is finding a Spike who is hot enough to realistically draw the attention of all three siblings.

1. Jefferson Farber at the Arena Stage in Washington DC has the basket and biceps, but the tattoos are a definite drawback, and what's with the smirk?

2.  The Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples, Florida tells us who all of the other actors are, but refuses to reveal the actor who plays Spike.  Pity -- handsome face, sculpted physique, hangs to the left.

3.  Joburg Theatre in South Africa.  Nice pecs and abs, nice hair, no basket.

4. Citadel Theater in Illinois.  Is this the boytoy or the brother?

5. The Arts Commons in Calgary.  Nice muscular frame, impressive basket, but he's got to do something about that hair.

6.  Jefferson McDonald as a shaggy-handsome prince Spike in Cincinnati.

7. Berkeley Rep.  He sort of looks like Dick Sargent from Bewitched, who used to go cruising with my friend Randall the Muscle Bear.

8. Palisades Theater. Kyle Jordan is practically perfect.

9. Harlequin Theatre, Olympia, Washington.  Too skinny.

10. Stephan Mark Lucas in Smithtown, New York. 








See also: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

10 Shirtless Bricks from "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"

Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was first performed in 1955, won a Pulitzer Prize, and remains a favorite today, in spite of (or maybe because of) its shrill theatricality: a dysfunctional family yelling about its hidden passions and long-ago traumas.

Like most Tennessee Williams plays, same-sex desire is lurking just below the surface, alluded to but never discussed.

And there's a guy with his shirt off:  Brick, son of the dying Big Daddy, an alcoholic ex-footballer who won't sleep with his wife, Maggie (the Cat on the Hot Tin Roof), maybe because he's gay -- he was in love with his old teammate, Skipper, who committed suicide.

In the 1950s, of course, the implication of gayness is a major scandal.  Big Daddy tiptoes around it, but Maggie shrieks it out.

The 1958 movie closeted Brick and Skipper even more: "I told him he was weak!" Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) shrieks.

But Paul Newman as Brick famously walked around in pajama bottoms, leading most contemporary productions to give us shirtless Bricks.

1. Top photo: Max Falls at Utah State.  Even closeted, Cat is quite a heady mix for Utah.

2. Benjamin Walker in Pittsburgh shows us some Brick abs.






3.The Cincinnati Shakespeare Company surprisingly gives us bald, middle-aged Brick with a little belly.  But that's how he's written, right?

4.  Jonathan Shirey at the Susquehanna Stage Company. An ex-athlete?  He's got a bodybuilder's physique!

5.  Chapter, a multi-art cultural space in Cardiff, Wales, gives us a rather slim Brick.

More after the break

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a 2012 comedy by Christopher Durang that brings Chekhov and beefcake to rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

If you need to know the plot:

Vanya and Sonia are a middle aged brother and sister, one gay and the other straight, who live together on the family farm and complain about their cherry orchard.

Their life of complacency and complaining is disrupted when their young movie star sibling Masha arrives, with her uber-muscular boy toy Spike, who is allergic to clothes.







Spike is always played by a mega hunk, who spends most of his stage time in his Calvin Kleins, thrusting his you-know-what at whoever is sitting nearby.

Everyone starts flirting with Spike and competing with each other to see who can complain the loudest.  Old rivalries surface.

After a disastrous party with a Snow White theme, Masha announces that she's going to sell the house and kick Vanya and Sonia out on their cherry orchards.

Meanwhile Sonia gets a date, Vanya gets a backer for his play, The Seagull, and Spike cheats on Masha.

Masha gives Spike the boot, decides not to sell the house, and the three siblings live happily ever after, just like in a Chekhov play.

Except for the gay character.

And the happy ending.

And the beefcake.

Did I mention the beefcake?