Interview with a Playwright: Steve Yockey

The 2016 Season of Rough Readings continues with a fresh set of new plays still in development. The March Rough Readings features Mercury from playwright Steve Yockey. We were fortunate enough to ask him some questions about this delightfully dark comedy:

Rachel Finkelstein: Thanks for taking the time to speak with us! Much of your work, Mercury included, is so surreal -- what draws you to that? 

Steve Yockey: I love when anyone says “surrealism.” It’s sexy. But as alluring as that label sounds, I honestly can’t own it. Sure, the mythic qualities are definitely there, the unexpected punctures in the natural world, but all of my work adheres to a pretty strict internal logic. There are rules; we’re driving towards something. 

Steve Yockey

I guess for all intents and purposes, it’s really just dark realism with some pretty grand theatrical gestures. I’ve always been fascinated by taking these intimate, very human stories and placing them right at the edge of something epic in size or unknown. Seeing the scale of those two things create friction. That’s where most of my plays live. Mercury takes something simple and familiar like failing relationships and casts them against the literally immense and horrifying mechanics of a vengeful universe. It’s fun. Or at least it should be fun. 

RF: Because underneath all of those more “mythic” details, the play really is about some deeply dysfunctional relationships. How do you want the audience so feel about relationships when they come away from the play? 

SY: Amused by the terrible choices? Although I’m betting some people will leave identifying with the terrible choices, which would also be pretty great. It’s essentially a dark comedy and only one character of the seven in the play is anywhere even close to being a “good” person. So it’s tricky. Maybe I’d like the audience to come away hoping these characters will become better people. I want to say it’s never too late for anyone, but the play doesn’t really make that case. 

RF: Why do you use so much overlapping speech in Mercury? 

SY: Oh, that’s something I use in all of my plays. In real life we don’t wait for other people to finish speaking, especially in heated exchanges. And it’s also a way of tuning rhythms and builds, like in a piece of music. 

RF: You write for several different forms of media, including for comics and TV -- how does that compare to playwriting? 

SY: Playwriting lets you be a little bit more ambitious with storytelling. I think that’s the best way to say it. In theatre we ask audiences to suspend their disbelief and imagine a lot more. That means we can take bigger swings.

RF: That's the beauty of it. Thanks again for your time!

The Rough Reading Series is Pay What You Can. The 2016 series continues with "Mercury" by Steve Yockey, playing Monday, March 14th, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University and Tuesday, March 15th, 2pm at Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco.

Read more about "Mercury", Steve Yockey, and the Rough Reading Series at  Playwrightsfoundation.org. 

Save a Seat with an RSVP! Email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call 415.626.2176.

Interview with a Playwright: Kevin Artigue

The 2016 Season of Rough Readings continues with a fresh set of new plays still in development. The Late February Rough Readings features The Most Dangerous Highway in the World from playwright Kevin Artigue. We were fortunate enough to ask him some questions about this work and the Producing Partnership with Golden Thread Productions:

Rachel Finkelstein: It's a pleasure to speak with you! I'd love to hear how you first learned about the Kabul-Jalalabad Highway, and what compelled you to write a play on it?

Kevin Artigue: I can’t exactly remember! I think I first saw a picture in an old library book researching a different play (also set in Afghanistan). But it was a series of articles by the journalist Dexter Filkins that sparked the first images for the play. What stuck with me was the idea that these drivers were purposefully risking their lives, driving way too fast, taking stupid risks - and why? The mystery of their death wish stuck with me. And in the middle of the exhaust and chaos was a charming, hopeful little boy eking out a living. 

Kevin Artigue

The image of a car soaring over his head while he directs traffic – I wanted to see that on stage. 

RF: How did you come to know the characters you feature in the play?

KA: I’m not from Afghanistan so I had lots of homework to do – which continues to this day. The process of getting to know my characters starts with a superficial first draft that slowly gets better, becomes more grounded, moving outside in. But the key to my understanding of my characters and the world of the play is thanks to the faith of Golden Thread. They have provided me with moral and creative support for the last three years, including vital introductions to the Afghan community. These contacts and conversations have enriched and transformed not only my play, but my life. Writing this far outside my experience has been tough, but I believe worth the extra effort.

RF: So, what is your connection to Golden Threads Productions and their New Threads Staged Reading Series? How are you collaborating them to bring your vision to life?

KA: My collaboration with Golden Thread began three years ago with a staged reading of an early draft, and has continued to this day. They have championed this play and supported its development. Together, we took the play to the National New Play Showcase in 2014, and out of that successful week we hatched plans for a production. In preparation for production in May, Golden Thread has provided me with all the dramaturgical love a playwright can ask for, including access to experts and cultural consultants. As the first writer of non-Middle Eastern descent to be produced on their mainstage, I feel honored and humbled.

RF: The play has a beautiful dreamlike repetition to it - what was the driving force behind that use of language?

KA: Some of the characters in the play are caught in a literal limbo, wandering off after their car accidents in a state of amnesia. Slowly, in pieces, they begin to remember what happened. As memories come back to them, the language circles and builds until it clarifies and makes more sense.

RF: And to close up, is there anything you'd like the audience to keep in mind going into the reading?

KA: I’d like them to know something that took me a while to really see: that Afghanistan is more than a war torn “graveyard of empires”. We’re bombarded with depressing images and stories of war, trauma, and suffering. While these images of Afghanistan are mostly accurate, they are biased, and override the simultaneous bigger story of the vast majority of Afghans who manage through hope, perseverance, religion, and humor to create meaning and order in their day-to-day lives. A need for meaning and order we can easily recognize in ourselves. 

RF: Definitely - I look forward to seeing it! Thanks again for speaking with us.

The Rough Reading Series is Pay What You Can. The 2016 series begins with "The Most Dangerous Highway in the World" by Kevin Artigue, playing Sunday, February 21st, 5:00pm at Custom Made Theatre, San Francisco and Monday, February 22nd, 7:30pm at Roble Hall, Stanford University.

Read more about "The Most Dangerous Highway in the World", Kevin Artigue, and the Rough Reading Series at  Playwrightsfoundation.org. 

Save a Seat with an RSVP! Email rsvp@playwrightsfoundation.org or call 415.626.2176.

Inside the Des Voix Mind: Michelle Haner on Léonore Confino and "One Upon Another"

For a translator, taking on the work of a contemporary playwright, especially one as playful and provocative as Léonore Confino, can be a bit like taking a trip down the rabbit-hole.  While hanging out the unknown found there, ideally, that time is spent not just obsessing over the "blades of grass" (the word-to-word stuff), but also discovering a greater landscape, one forged of rhythms, sounds, atmospheres, themes and of course characters. 

Michelle Haner, Translator

In the process of rendering Confino’s world from French to English, questions of translation range from the logistically banal (should I transpose euros, kilos and the names of products and supermarkets?) to the culturally subtle (how to translate that sense of lightness, irony, melancholy or “je ne sais quoi” embedded in a particular turn of phrase?)

In Confino’s portrait of a contemporary French family, three generations “one upon another”, alternately imploding and exploding, the voices of the characters are a particularly rich, vital part of her landscape. Voices come from beyond the grave; voices lose their bodies and resonate through the pre-fabricated house. Seeking to capture their distinct, vital qualities in translation has been both exciting – and particularly challenging.  There is the broken, breathless, sometimes frantic voice of the over-taxed mother; the loving, but ‘oft evasive voice of the scientist –husband; the ironic, bitter, profanity-laced voice of the wheel chair bound grandfather.  Most powerful, poignant and challenging are the voices of the children, smart, savvy, funny, self-aware and heart breaking in their brutality, their nihilism, their despair. Theirs is a language infiltrated with new tech-inspired inventions and pop cultural references, not to mention such French adolescent mainstays as Anglicism’s and “vers-langue” (a popular French slang created by saying words literally backwards).

Léonore Confino, Playwright

It is as much through the specificity of these voices – as through her unique mix of drama and slapstick, tragedy and comedy, real and surreal – that Confino probes the French family of today, offering up a portrait of a society in flux, in tension, in uncertainty and self-reflection. 

Having so enjoyed the opportunity to spend this time exploring Confino’s world, the translator’s humble hope is simply that she has been somewhat successful in rendering up an English-language version, that Confino’s vision may be shared with a wider audience.

-Michelle Haner, Translator of One Upon Another by Léonore Confino.




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Staged Readings of "Les uns sur les autres" or One Upon Another by Léonore Confino will be on Saturday, May 10 @ 2pm and Sunday, May 11 @ 7:30pm at the Tides Theatre, as a part of the Des Voix Festival. 

Des Voix...Biennial 2014: A Festival of New French Plays and Cinema features the American Premiere of Communiqué n˚10, three new French Plays in translation, five french film screenings and a Bal Littéraire, a New Play Night Club.  

Purchase a Full Festival Pass here and gain access to every reading, film, Bal Littéraire and your choice of Communique n˚10 performance during Des Voix!

Check out the Des Voix Festival website for more information, including links to buy tickets, a full festival schedule and directions on how to find where the Left Bank Meets the Left Coast.  

Ozma of Oz: A Tale of Dorothy’s Return to Oz, Unlikely Heroes, and Fluid Gender Identities

written by Gillian Heitman, Artistic Director Fellow and Production Assistant for Ozma of Oz

Rough Reading: Ozma of Oz, written and directed by Rob Melrose

zma of Oz is a trip hop rock musical that centers on Dorothy and her quest to save the royal family of Ev from the evil Nome King, based on the third book from L. Frank Baum’s Oz series. She is aided by her old friends: Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, as well as new friends such as Sawhorse, TikTok, Tiger, a feisty chicken named Billina, and, most mysterious and wonderful of all, Princess Ozma.

A theme that stands out is being more than what you’re born as. The show’s use of gender bending enhances this theme and allows for an open discourse on sexuality. Many actors played characters with the opposite gender and there was a lot of discussion of what best served the story and how changing the gender of the actor altered the meaning of the scene. Another way gender is so fluidly dealt with is with the character of Ozma, who describes her childhood as a boy and asks Dorothy if it confuses her. “No, not at all,” Dorothy replies, “I think because I’ve spent time in Oz, things that may seem strange to some people don’t seem strange to me.” Dorothy’s journey is a discovery of self as much as it is a discovery of her own sexuality. Her acceptance and attraction for Ozma shows how we can find ourselves in untraditional places.

Tristan Cunningham as Ozma

Inspiration for Ozma of Oz began when Rob Melrose, artistic director and co-founder of The Cutting Ball Theater, read the Ozma of Oz novel to his daughter around the same time as listening to the music of Z.O.N.K., a trip hop rock band which creates distinctly urban and San Franciscan sounding music. Something about all of those Z’s struck a chord with him and he soon began working on an Ozma of Oz musical, commissioning Z.O.N.K. to work at The Cutting Ball Theater for the project.

Last week, Ozma of Oz received its third staged reading at the Rough Reading series here at PF. It was a complicated rehearsal schedule due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but the cast and creative team pulled through to get a rewarding and insightful experience.

When working with such a large and rich story, one important consideration was how the future production value would determine the development of the show. Would it be better to write for a big Broadway budget or for more of a club atmosphere? Ultimately, Rob decided to write the best San Francisco Cutting Ball version and see where it goes from there.

While the first reading helped develop the songs and music of the show, at the Rough Readings this past week Rob chose to play only three recordings (which were excellently played) and have the cast sing the rest of the show a cappella. This decision was made so that the audience and actors could focus on the lyrics and meaning behind the songs rather than on the musical notes. The result is the audience got a taste of Z.O.N.K.’s musical styling while also being given the time to fully grasp the emotional content, depth, and humor of the songs and characters.

Missed Ozma this time around? Well, it’ll be back in July as part of Playwrights Foundation’s 37^th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival. So take a ride on a green magic carpet and join us for the next reincarnation of this exciting, new, and uniquely San Franciscan musical!