By Joanna Brady

If you like your humor wry and dry, with a noir touch of cynical nihilism, you’re going to love Life Sucks, a relatively new play now on at the Red Barn Theater.  I certainly did, along with the laugh-out-loud audience around me the other night. 

The genius behind this play is the brilliant Philadelphia playwright, Aaron Posner, who took his inspiration from Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya

And no, you don’t need to be familiar with the Russian work. Life Sucks is a very modern piece. The Chekhov drama only served as a jumping off point for this very funny play. A play crafted for no less than seven actors, with the dialogue and pacing steered admirably by director Joy Hawkins. (It must have been like herding cats.)

The premise of the play is that yeah, life is hard. No, as Mick Jagger long ago reminded us, you can’t always get what, or who, you want. But to paraphrase Carly Simon, you haven’t got time for the pain. It’s the only life you’ve got, and it’s up to you to take control of it and make something of it.

Without dredging the audience in present day politics, Life Sucks manages to identify the problems just about everybody has at one time or another, and why life is painful in our time. 

Life Sucks could almost be described as a play within a play, with the cast addressing itself to the audience, stopping the action occasionally to comment, and to involve us, asking us what we think. Audience participation is always fun, and adds a rich dimension to the piece.

Boomers will love Robert, the elderly professor. Life sucks for him because of the ailments of old age, about which he kvetches continually in polysyllabic words nobody understands. A soliloquy he addresses to the audience is priceless. 

For his pretty young wife, (played by the talented Susannah Wells) life sucks because of the choices she’s made, her student loans, and the fact that men always hit on her. For Sonya, Robert’s daughter, it’s unrequited love for their neighbor, a drunken doctor (played convincingly by Aaron Duclos); for him it’s because he works so hard and works out so hard—running marathons for charity. And on it goes as the actors kvetch their way through the play, their jeremiads interspersed with great wit and gleeful dialogue.

There are risks in writing a piece imbued with this kind of dark humor, like keeping it from getting too dour over two hours. Or getting caught up in reality and descending into the clutches of despair. But Life Sucks never does that. Even at its darkest moment, when one of the characters tries to shoot another one, the foiled attempt is funny, and the character (Vanya, played by David Black) is laughed at and proclaimed an idiot.

At one point someone asks what it is they all want, what would make them happy. Vanya’s answer is the key to understanding the play: He wants to be loved unconditionally. The message seems to be that no matter how much you have, without a happy, satisfying relationship, life does indeed suck. Love is what keeps us sane and sustains us when we teeter on the edge of the abyss. 

The play is superbly cast, with the always-entertaining David Black portraying Vanya in perfect deadpan; a nebbish with a lisp in owlish glasses. Karl M. Stahl, is wonderful as the pompous professor whose esoteric pontifications nobody can follow. Susannah Wells is excellent as his wife, an overeducated femme fatale whom everyone wants to sleep with—including one of the women. 

Wearing toss-away clothes and a dental brace to simulate buck teeth like Rami Malek’s in Bohemian Rhapsody, the normally very pretty Jessica Miano Kruel, is barely recognizable as Robert’s plain daughter, Sonya. (Charlene Theron didn’t do better hiding her pulchritude in Monster). Her role is pivotal, and she performs it very well. George DiBraud plays Babs, who sometimes lapses into Jewish common sense, a reminder of the playwright’s own background. Caroline Taylor gives a funny portrayal of Pickles, the simple, but wise fifth business. A loveable court jester.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the beautiful set put together by Rick Worth, Gary McDonald, and Jack McDonald. An eyeful of color to foil any gloom encrypted in the script, it’s the icing on the cake.

Altogether, a terrific play, well-directed and performed. Highly recommended (but not for children). A great addition to the Red Barn’s repertory as it enters its 40th year. (Congratulations to all the founders!)

Life Sucks will run on Tuesdays through Saturdays Jan.14 through Feb.  8. All shows start at 8 p.m.. Play runs two hours, with one intermission. There will be a Talk-Back with the director and cast following the Sat., Jan 18 performance. For more information and tickets, go to redbarntheatre.com or call the Box Office at 305 296-9911.

(Joanna Brady is a local writer, author of the historical Key West novel, The Woman at the Light, published by St. Martin’s Press)

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