Playwright Aaron Posner.
To better appreciate Aaron Posner’s play, Life Sucks, it helps to first understand Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Or maybe it works better the other way around.
Despite its comedic intent, Posner’s play is an unbridled homage to the Russian playwright known for letting his characters’ agony and angst roil just below the surface of his dark comedies. In Vanya, Chekhov’s characters are prisoners of their own lives, while Posner approaches the story of unhappy people trapped in a country house with his typical take-no-prisoners attitude. Forward Theater Company’s production of Life Sucks runs March 28-April 14 at Overture’s Playhouse.
Posner’s bold and brash interpretation of Vanya still manages to treat the gaggle of “family members” — a group of old friends, ex-lovers, estranged in-laws and lifelong enemies — with a deft comedic and surprisingly human touch, says Forward’s artistic director Jennifer Uphoff Gray, who is helming the production.
“I was immediately drawn to this play for its skillful blending of both humor and heart,” Gray says. “Its postmodern sensibility pairs surprisingly well with Chekhov’s original story.”
Life Sucks also is part of the troika of Chekhov tributes for which the playwright is best known.
Many people think that Posner’s interpretations — which include Stupid Fucking Bird, based on Chekhov’s The Seagull, and No Sisters, a retelling of Three Sisters — are supposed to lampoon the playwright’s work. Nothing could be further from the truth, he says.
“I have chosen Chekhov as my foundation, my playground,” explains Posner, who was born in Madison and lived here until age 2. “My plays are funny and human like his plays, but they also are serious and complicated, like life.
“I am trying to do something similar to what he was doing, but in a very different way,” he adds. “I love Chekhov. I love him, love him, love him.”
Posner’s love affair with theater began in junior high school in Eugene, Oregon, when he and his friends would routinely stage amateur plays. The friends left to follow other passions, while Posner went on to study theater at Northwestern University and eventually founded Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia.
Posner is also a director, and routinely travels to Spring Green — although not this season — to direct shows at American Players Theatre. In March, he will attend the New York City premiere of Life Sucks at Wheelhouse Theater Company, and then fly to Madison to attend Forward’s opening night festivities.
In addition to Chekhov, Posner also has written District Merchants, a reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice that takes place in Washington, D.C., where Posner now lives. It’s one more of what the playwright calls his “irreverent plays.”
“Villainy doesn’t interest me, because most people are not villains,” Posner explains. “Most of us do the very best we can within our limited abilities while fucking things up most of the time.”
Posner also writes what he calls “reverent” plays, which include adaptations of Chaim Potok’s novels, including The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, and Ken Kesey’s Sometimes a Great Notion. Kesey’s book is a true Oregon story, Posner says, and a personal favorite.
When it comes to Chekhov, Posner calls him “an acute observer of humankind.”
“Chekhov was being irreverent to the theater of his day, and his approach literally changed the nature of theater and other forms of storytelling,” he says.
Posner’s newest play, which he also directed, will be his first totally original play. The inaugural run of JQA, the initials of former U.S. president John Quincy Adams, opened March 1 at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.. “I live just outside of D.C., which is the capital of people fucking things up,” Posner says. “That makes it an incredibly fertile creative environment for me.”
Posner says he’s looking forward to attending the Madison performance of Life Sucks, which is the play’s Wisconsin premiere. He will present a free lecture on March 30 in the Overture Center’s Playhouse at 1 p.m.
“Directing Aaron’s work is joyful and challenging,” Gray says. “Joyful because his sense of humor and mine seem to align, and challenging, because his isn’t a script that lays out every last beat on the page. He leaves a lot up to the director to figure out, and I am relishing that challenge.”
