Interview: LIFE Doesn't SUCK for John Ross Bowie

Aaron Posner’s Life Sucks. will have its Los Angeles premiere, September 30,2023 at The Broadwater Main Stage (with previews beginning September 24th). Barry Heins directs this reimagining of Anton Chekhov's classic play, Uncle Vanya with the cast of: John Ross Bowie, Anne Gee Byrd, Olivia Castanho, Erin Pineda, Lily Rains, Marc Valera and Steve Vinovich. John found time out of his not sucky life to answer a few of my queries.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, John!

What cosmic forces initially brought you and this production of Life Sucks. together?

As is often the case – someone else was unavailable. But there were other factors – I’m always looking to do theater and I’m always putting feelers out. Our director Barry Heins is married to Tracy Lilienfield, a casting director who had put me on as a guest star in the series finale of "Grace and Frankie." I guess that got me on his radar and got me an audition.

Have you seen other productions of Uncle Vanya before? 

Vanya on 42nd Street was my first exposure to any Chekhov, and I remember being floored by how accessible it was, how relatable, and it was also delightful since I grew up literally a couple blocks away (on 44th street). I saw The Pasadena Playhouse production last year, where Hugo Armstrong's Vanya left some very impressive shoes to fill. 

What characteristics of your character Vanya did you immediately relate to?

We honestly don’t have enough time to cover all the things Vanya and I have in common. He’s a dreamer, he’s a romantic, he's prickly, he’s a little bit of a mansplainer. He’s unfocused and stricken with a sort of Tsarist-era ADHD. There's a striking amount of overlap.

What of Vanya’s traits did you have to take a minute to portray authentically?

Vanya is basically me IF (and this is a big if) I had never gone to therapy, never met my wife in an improv class 25 years ago, never quit drinking. I think at my core I’m a more optimistic person than he is. The challenge in doing Chekhov – any Chekhov – is making sure you don’t just play the inertia of the character. These people are trapped and kind of static, but you still have to give them momentum. They have to want things, they’ve gotta have, in the most basic acting class parlance, active intentions. They can’t just spend the whole play pitying themselves inside a bottle of Vodka. 

Are you familiar with any of Aaron Posner’s previous works?

I had heard of Stupid f-ing Bird, and had heard great things, but missed it when it went up in L.A. But he has a very New York sensibility in his writing – the Yiddish, sure, but just a certain world-weariness that I relate to and that comes to me with relative ease. That sort of armored attitude that comes with living in Manhattan and day after day of expensive inconvenience. This makes it sound like I don’t love my native city – I really do, it was just a tough place to live.

What would your three-line pitch for Life Sucks. be?

Hmm. I bet I can do it in under 3 lines. Here goes: 

Love, longing, loss and (somehow) laughs at a cabin in the Berkshires. Chekhov with profanity (finally)!

Have you worked with any of Life Sucks. cast or creatives before? 

Not really, so that’s exciting! I’ve known Erin Pineda, who plays Ella (the Elena character), for years, and she reminded me today that she briefly took an Upright Citizens Brigade class I taught. Everyone else is new to me, and they’re all perfectly cast. I’ve seen L.A. theatre icon Anne Gee Byrd in a couple of things (including that Vanya last year) and to be working with her is pretty goddam thrilling.

You wrote Four Chords and a Gun that streamed live in June 2021. Is Life Sucks. the first time on the Los Angeles stage? 

No, I’ve been diving into L.A. theater for a while now. Four Chords and a Gun (a play I wrote about the Ramones and Phil Spector) was actually fully staged back in 2016 here in L.A., at the great Bootleg Theater in Filipinotown. As an actor, I’ve done some readings and some workshops locally, and I got my Equity card in a production of Laughter on the 23rd Floor in Toluca Lake.

You’ve also written two books (Heathers and your memoir No Job For A Man), and wrote for Go Metric and The New York Press. What did you want to be growing up? Writer? Actor? Stand-up?

Very early on I wanted to be an actor. But the catch about growing up in New York City is that you have a front row seat to how challenging a life it can be – you don’t just see the successes on TV, you see the people working two jobs and sneaking off to audition on their lunch breaks, and sometimes you see them coming back home in tears. That scared me off, so for years I focused on writing. And then when I decided I had to at least give acting a try, I had a terrific teacher (Caryn West, look her up) who pointed out that acting is just another form of storytelling. So I try to do both.

What gives you greater gratification – exercising your acting chops? Or typing ‘The End’ on a script or manuscript?

That’s an interesting question. I like finishing a written project, I love slapping a title page on a script. Writing “Blackout” at the end of a play is a nice buzz. But acting is such an unfinished process, and it evolves depending on the audience, and nothing is ever in stone, so that fluidity is a really great natural high. Is that a pretentious windbag answer? It might be. I'm sorry.

Is there another theatrical script percolating in your creative mind?

Yes, but I never talk about stuff I’m writing. For a bunch of reasons – it creates stress, expectations, I sound like an insufferable dork. When I wrote that memoir last year, I didn’t tell anyone I was working on it until it had a publication date. Can you imagine being asked a worse question than “Hey, man, how’s your memoir coming along?”

What’s on the horizon for John Ross Bowie?

I wrote a play called Brushstroke that’s going to go up in the new year at the Odyssey Theater. I’m really excited about it – it’s a cold-war thriller comedy set in the 1950s in New York. It’s very loosely based on this underreported chapter in American History where the CIA was secretly funding abstract expressionist art and poetry journals and all sorts of cultural assets as a way to win back the American left. It was fascinating to research; I really hope it’s fun to watch.

Thank you again, John! I look forward to meeting your Vanya.

For tickets to the live performances of Life Sucks. through October 29, 2023; click on the button below:

 

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