Poor Anton Chekhov. For some reason, lots of playwrights
have recently decided that the best way for them to write a new play is to
cannibalize one of his old ones.
That’s what Aaron Posner does in Life Sucks. (the period's included in its title), a snarky modern-dress riff on Uncle Vanya that had a successful run at The Wild Project earlier this year and is now playing in Theatre Three at Theatre Row through Sept. 1. And it’s what Halley Feiffer has done in her even more annoyingly titled Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow, a punk version of Three Sisters that is running at MCC Theater through Aug. 17.
That’s what Aaron Posner does in Life Sucks. (the period's included in its title), a snarky modern-dress riff on Uncle Vanya that had a successful run at The Wild Project earlier this year and is now playing in Theatre Three at Theatre Row through Sept. 1. And it’s what Halley Feiffer has done in her even more annoyingly titled Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow, a punk version of Three Sisters that is running at MCC Theater through Aug. 17.
Both playwrights profess to be big fans of the Russian
master and to be paying homage or tribute to him with their reimagining of his
classic works (click here to read a discussion between them). But their lavish
use of potty-mouthed dialog, their constant breaking of the fourth wall and their
replacement of Chekhov’s carefully calibrated subtext with hit-you-on-the-nose
explications add up to a kind of simplified Chekhov for Dummies.
It’s not that Posner and Feiffer aren’t talented. Posner’s My
Name is Asher Lev, a sensitive adaptation of Chaim Potok's novel about an
Orthodox Jewish boy who breaks away from his family to become an artist, made
my Top 10 list for 2013. And although parts of it made me cringe with
discomfort, I was ultimately moved by I'm Gonna Pray for You So Hard, Feiffer’s 2015 drama about a toxic relationship between a father and daughter that seemed to echo
the one between the playwright and her father, the cartoonist and
playwright Jules Feiffer.
This time out however, both writers seem more interested in
showing off how cleverly post-modern they can be. For the most part, the
characters and the storylines in their updates hew close to the Chekhov
originals. Vanya, the central figure in Life Sucks. is still a sad sack who has
spent his life managing a country estate for the pompous professor who is his brother-in-law and pining for the man’s younger second wife. The three sisters
in Moscow are still living in a provincial Russian town and longing for what
they believe will be a more fulfilling life in the capital.
The entanglements with and among their relatives, friends
and other hangers on also remain in both plays. What’s different are the
self-consciously colloquial and often profane language (“I look like shit, but
what else is new? I've always looked like shit,” complains Olga, the oldest of
the sisters in Moscow) and the self-indulgent meta-theatrics that often mar the
most tiresome skits on "Saturday Night Live" (at various points, the characters in Life Sucks. line
up and dance awkwardly or quiz the audience about how sucky their lives are).
But Chekhov had already let me know how unhappy Olga was
without the obscenity and how dispirited Vanya and his gang were without the
embarrassing shuffling around. All that said, I did enjoy some elements of each current production.
Posner has made his female characters feistier than
Chekhov’s. The snooty aristocratic mother-in-law has been replaced with a down-to-earth
godmother and the gloomy male retainer Waffles has been transformed into a more upbeat lesbian named Pickles. Even Vanya’s lovelorn niece Sonia has been
given more backbone than she has in the original version. And it's refreshing to see these women speaking up for themselves.
Feiffer meanwhile, has trimmed Chekhov’s sometimes rambling
four acts down to 90-minutes. And although that might make some of the
storytelling a little confusing for people unfamiliar with Three Sisters, it
does give Moscow a propulsive energy. And even some of its silliest moments (and there are plenty of them) are laugh-out-loud funny.
Both Trip Cullman who directed Moscow and Jeff Wise, who
helmed Life Sucks., honor the intentions of their playwrights and the
shenanigans they’ve crafted (Cullman even includes some business with a Whoopee
cushion) but they also leave room for the actors to breathe real life into
their characters.
And those actors, cast without regard for race or in some
cases gender, are almost across-the-board excellent. Moscow in particular
features a murderers’ row of heavy hitters including Stephen Boyer, Tavi Gevinson,
Sas Goldberg, Alfredo Narciso and Ray Anthony Thompson. But first among equals
for me was the male actor Chris Perfetti, who portrays the unhappily married
middle sister Masha who has an affair with a military officer temporarily
assigned to the town.
Costumed in a long black dress but eschewing even the slightest
bit of camp, Perfetti so perfectly captured both the humor and the pathos of
the character that his performance would have been totally at home in even the
most traditional production of Three Sisters. It reassured me that no matter
what they do to him, Chekhov will be OK.