Sigourney Weaver Plays Masha, A 'Great Peacock Of A Person', In New Broadway Play: Christopher Durang's 'Vanya And Sonia And Masha And Spike'

Christopher Durang's, "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike," opened on Broadway on March 14, at the Golden Theatre following a critically embraced Off-Broadway run, according to Playbill.com.

Playbill says that it, "whips Chekhov's dramatic themes into an evening of existential American comedy."

"I've been saying that I take Chekhov scenes and characters and put them into a blender. It's my hope you don't have to know Chekhov super-well to enjoy it," Durang told Playbill in an interview.

The play focuses on three middle aged siblings Vanya, played by David Hyde Pierce, Sonia, played by Kristine Nielsen and Masha, played by Sigourney Weaver, according to The Associated Press.

The AP reports that, Durang and Weaver met in the fall of 1971 at the Yale School of Drama. He was playwright who sometimes acted and she was an actress. They often had lunch together and she appeared in one of his first plays "Better Dead Than Sorry."

Durang specifically had Weaver on mind when he created the role for Masha, according to the AP.  She plays an overindulgent and self-centered movie star who is unaware she's on the decline.  "I thought that if, for any reason, Sigourney was free, it would be fun to have her play this self-centered actress," Durang told the AP. "She doesn't always get to play these grandiose roles. She has such a sense of intelligence to her."

At one point in the play, the AP reports, Weaver dons an unflattering old Disney-inspired Snow White costume and insists her friends dress as dwarfs to complement it.

Weaver, 63, says that she never hesitated about taking on the role.  "I didn't," she told the AP. "I guess I thought I was different enough from Masha, that I would be fine. And I'm very fond of her."

Weaver refers to the character Masha as a "great peacock of a person," who is high-strung and self-absorbed, according to the AP.

In the play Masha is the only sibling who escaped being pent up in their Pennsylvania home and bickering for years, the AP reports.  Instead, she has become an insufferable movie star and  returns to the house with Spike, a 29-year-old boy-toy, to sell it and throw her siblings out onto the street.

Masha's life is not all that she had hoped for it seems considering that she had wanted to become the American Judi Dench, but got waylaid in a lucrative franchise playing a nymphomaniac serial killer and went through several husbands, according to the AP.  "I'm talented, charming, successful - and yet they leave me. They must be insane," Masha muses.

By the end of the play, Weaver's character, Masha slowly comes to the realization that her fussy Hollywood queen act can't last forever, according to the AP.  "It has to be over-the-top at the beginning. It's a performance that she utterly believes," Weaver says. "I feel like an exhausted bird. I think it takes a lot of effort to manifest that kind of persona. When she gives it up, I think she feels better."

"Critics and audiences responded warmly to the farce that weaves themes from Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's catalogue into a weekend of costumes, prophecies and existential longing. The limited 17-week engagement began previews March 5 and will continue through June 30," reported Playbill.