Event Listing - Theater, Dance

Fri May 30 - Sun Jun 1

San Francisco International Arts Festival presents

Yes, Yes to Moscow

Art Street Theatre (San Francisco and Germany)

Tel. 415-399-9554
Website

Location	Date and Time
Dance Mission Theatre 3316 24th St San Francisco, CA 94110 district: Mission	Fri May 30 (9:30pm) Sat May 31 (4:30pm) Sun Jun 1 (7pm)

Description

The San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) is proud to present the US premiere of Yes, Yes to Moscow a collaborative project between Bay Area playwright and director Mark Jackson and performance artist Beth Wilmurt (Art Street Theatre), working with Berlin based designer Alexander Polzin, director and choreographer Sommer Ulrickson and performance artist Tilla Kratochwil. Yes, Yes to Moscow explores contemporary themes of cultural longing and assumptions drawing on the classic Russian play Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. This very physical, choreographic-theater rendition of the play imagines that the title's siblings have finally made their coveted return to Moscow. But, since their lives have been entirely defined by their desire to go to Moscow, now that they have arrived their purpose is lost. They go into shock, retreating to their former selves, longing for the Moscow of their imaginations. The piece finds them in a holding cell where they are studied by a man at a desk, who supplies them with fragments of text from their play, as well as music and the occasional appearance by one of the male figures of their former lives.

As with Chekhov's play, Yes, Yes to Moscow is about the longing for a better life and the assumption that the grass is surely greener on the other side — of the wall, the street, the border or the continent. The piece asks questions that are both personal and political. What makes us happy? Why are the future and the past often more important to us than the present? Why do we envy in others what we do not, or think we do not, have? What is it about a foreign land or culture that is so mysterious to us that, amidst our intrigue, we forget at times that we are all human?

SFIAF Executive Director, Andrew Wood said of the Festival's decision to present Yes, Yes to Moscow, "Although the original play — an acknowledged classic — is a difficult one to stage and carries an air of almost overwhelming gloom, Mark Jackson is one of the few contemporary playwright/directors that can simultaneously do justice to the memory of Chekhov and the famous emotions of his characters, but at the same time present them in an original, highly physical, contemporary manner. In successive award-winning new works such as The Death of Meyerhold and The Forest War, Mark has taken serious and difficult subject matter dealing with murder, revolution and war and been able to evoke the deepest poignancy in his characters, something that resonates profoundly with and draws empathy from a live audience. Then, five minutes later, has the same audience laughing out loud at absurdist, bizarre happenings or biting, satirical plot twists. He has the unique ability to take the characters from a play of which it is often said, 'nothing ever happens' and re-imagine them in a situation that can speak to contemporary audiences in a manner that is both wickedly entertaining and politically and personally profound."

Yes, Yes to Moscow was originally presented by the renowned Deutsches Theater Berlin, and was created in Germany during two residencies for Jackson and Wilmurt where they got to work extensively with their Berlin based colleagues. It premiered there on October 11, 2007. This work was funded in part by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Goethe Institute, Theatre Bay Area CA$H Grant, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, the Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous individual supporters.

Art Street Theatre
Art Street Theatre was founded in San Francisco in 1995. The company's first production was Artistic Director Mark Jackson's one-act play, Little Extremes, produced under the umbrella of the San Francisco Fringe Festival. Subsequent productions included Oscar Wilde's Salome; a splintered and hallucinatory rendition of Shakespeare's famous love story, R&J, which was produced twice; and the world premieres of several original plays by Jackson, including Brave, BANG, Messenger #1, Io Princess of Argos (with music and lyrics by Marci Karr), and I Am Hamlet.

Art Street was commissioned by EXIT Theater to create The Lost Plays of Jacques du Bon Temps, an original absurdist piece, in 2000. The company received the San Francisco Bay Guardian's annual Goldie Award in 2001. In 2002, Encore Theater Company revived Art Street's 2001 production of Io Princess of Argos. Over the years, Art Street and its artists have received numerous awards of recognition from the local press, including the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, San Francisco Magazine, the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle, and the Bay Area's favorite critic and theater lover, Dean Goodman. With each endeavor, be it a workshop or production, Art Street's aim is to provide an opportunity for people to gather in the same space at the same time for an experience that is simultaneously funny, moving, thought provoking, and only possible in a live theater.