Taos Onstage presents its first main stage production, Life Sucks. by Aaron Posner and directed by Charlotte Keefe. It is a loose and brash adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, that often-performed masterpiece in which members of the rural bourgeoisie lounge about, fall in love with the wrong people and long to change their miserable lives. In short, the play is about love, longing and loss. Whether one is familiar with Uncle Vanya or not, the audience will relate to the musings and confessions of the characters. According to Posner there are few miseries loftier than interaction with other people. More specifically, your family and friends. Life Sucks. is often funny and always warm-hearted (more so than Uncle Vanya).
The cast includes Jeff Spicer (Uncle Vanya), Steve Moser (Dr. Aster, Vanya’s best friend), Savannah Holden (Sonia, Vanya’s niece), Kristen Woolf (Babs, family friend), Karen Thibodeau (Pickles, Vanya’s step, half-sister), Blair Jackson (The Professor, Sonia’s father) and Elena Trujillo (Ella, the Professor’s third wife).
Vanya, Sonia, Babs and Pickles live together. Dr. Aster lives close by. Their lives are interrupted with a visit from the self-satisfying pedantic Professor and his beautiful and much younger wife, Ella. Over the course of a few days, old friends, ex-lovers, and estranged in-laws grapple with life’s thorniest questions—and each other. Incurably lustful, lonely, hapless and hopeful, these seven souls collide and stumble their way towards a new understanding that LIFE SUCKS. Or does it?
There are a few warnings:
The characters often talk to the audience.
You might learn something about your companion to the theatre. Or you might reveal something.
There is a gunshot (prop pistol) as in the original Uncle Vanya.
There is strong language which may not be suitable to children and some adults.