Aaron Posner has been making a habit of writing Chekhovian plays. Needless to say, many playwrights have gone the Chekhovian route since the original manufacturer, Anton Chekhov himself, set the style in the late 19th century. But Posner does his Chekhovian writing differently.
Posner adapts the plays themselves into new, vernacular versions, though even that isn’t an entirely new approach. (Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is one of the most recent.) What’s magnetic about Posner’s updates is their highly dramatic flair. He has great personal fun compounding his Rubik’s Cubes with metatheatrical bits that might have had the good doctor Chekhov stuck for a critical diagnosis.
Full disclosure: Life Sucks, which Wheelhouse Theater Company has just moved uptown from a Wild Project stay, is the third of the wily Posner’s tinkering. The previous two are Stupid Fucking Bird (The Seagull) and No Sisters (The Three Sisters), neither of which I’ve seen. So I’m going out on most likely a short sturdy limb in saying they must be as accomplished as his riffing on the venerable Uncle Vanya.
Obviously smart as a whip with his innovations, Posner sticks nonetheless to Chekhov’s basic proceedings. Hapless title character Vanya (Kevin Isola), best friend Dr. Astrov, here called Dr. Aster (Michael Schantz), and niece Sonia (Kimberley Chatterjee) spend a heart-straining several days with self-satisfyingly pedantic Professor Serebryakov, here just Professor (Austin Pendleton), and with the Professor’s beautiful and much younger third wife Elena, here Ella (Nadia Bowers). Also populating Brittany Vasta’s appropriately busy set are Babs (Barbara Kingsley) and Pickles (Stacey Linnartz), who are Chekhovian rather than figures imagined by the master.
By adhering to Chekhov’s themes, Posner keeps love, longing and frustration streaming through the proceedings. There’s a whole lotta lovin’ going on, but only once between characters actually drawn to each other—and even then there’s nothing to be done about it. Vanya wants Ella, who has eyes for Dr. Aster, who also has eyes for Ella. Sonia has set her sights on Astrov but knows her plain looks will never snare him. The professor still adores Ella but has become too pedagogic to keep her interest. Babs stays above the fray, but even she admits to having had an ultimately unrequited passion sometime earlier.
Yes, widely expressed desire is one of at least a half dozen themes Posner merrily yet somberly borrows from Chekhov as he liberally deviates from Chekhov’s plot. Among other changes is dropping Sonia’s asking Ella to find out if Astrov has any feelings for her. Posner also discards Astrov’s showing Ella the maps he’s drawn of the shrinking local woodlands. There’s a good reason for that. Posner’s action doesn’t take place in Russia. This Life Sucks unfolds in some unspecified United States locale with often amusing references to things like eBay, Wisconsin, Steve Buscemi and smartphones.
Then there are Posner’s meta-insertions. The production starts—after the actors have been chatting to each other as the audience enters—with the cast members informing patrons what they’re about to see. (One of them acknowledges that the actual Uncle Vanya is the “superior play.”) The seven get in line again twice, first when each names three things he or she loves, second when each names three things he or she hates.
Outstanding performers everyone, the players also have no regard, as Posner writes it, for a fourth wall. They flaunt their emotional pain with speeches that under different circumstances might have been termed “asides.” But these are nothing like asides. They’re verbal cannonballs. Much of their impassioned discourse details the failure of love in their lives, starting with Pickles, who declares she has long lost the woman she loved but can’t move on because that early love refuses to die.
Pickles’ anguish is matched by the other six. As Vanya, Ella, Sonia, the Professor, Aster and Babs pour their disturbances out, the actors emote with such heart-on-sleeve emotion that as they follow each other, they each seem to be winning a makeshift can-you-top-this competition. That’s until the next one steps front and center.
Just accept that, under Jeff Wise’s razor-sharp direction, there’s no first among equals—with, perhaps, a special nod to Pendleton, who was top-notch during the just-finished season in Broadway’s Choir Boy, and then, that run ending, headed to off-off-Broadway’s Life Sucks stay. Part of Pendleton’s commitment may be his lengthy association with Uncle Vanya as actor and director. He certainly knows what he’s doing when Chekhov is the inspiration—and here he does it again.
Throughout Life Sucks, Posner’s characters harshly repeat the titular phrase, thoroughly convinced that life does indeed suck, period. (The play is officially titled “Life Sucks.” with that period.) Singly and together, they spout their reasons. Before the final blackout, the actors go so far as to ask the ticket buyers to offer comments on the issue.
Posner writes his play so skillfully that even as he lays out his compelling life-sucks argument, he and his colleagues undermine the thesis. Anything done this grittily-prettily proves there are times when life does anything but suck.
Life Sucks opened June 16, 2019, at Theatre Row and runs through September 1. Tickets and information: wheelhousetheater.org
