Profile: Breaking String's Vodka, Fucking and Television by Maxsym Kurochkin, November 29 - December 18

 

by Michael Meigs


It's a long way from Chekhov's elegiac The Seagull to Maksym Kurochkin's Vodka, Fucking and Television. If Graham Schmidt, artistic director of Breaking String Theatre, were teaching courses on modern Russian drama -- which he is not, having decided for the time being to do rather than to teach -- then Chekhov's first major play, staged in 1896, would probably be on the assigned reading list for the first or second week of the fall semester. Not until one of the concluding classes in the spring semester would VF+T appear, as a 2003 piece that helped shape the resurgence of the production of contemporary original drama in Russia.

If the grad students were lucky, they might get to meet Max Kurochkin, the playwright, either in person or via Skype, since over the past couple of years Schmidt has gotten himself involved in a big U.S.-Russia theatre cultural project financed by the U.S. State Department, one that reaches beyond the capitals and the big-money producers to a handful of theatre-rich regional hotspots including Austin.

There are a couple of other ways to draw lines  between the Chekhov and the Kurochkin works, and those also involve Austin.  Breaking String's The Seagull was staged in October 2007. Director Graham Schmidt had translated the play. After working with many of the same artists in two other Chekhov pieces, he turned the company's focus to what's happening now in Russia.

For me these pieces anchor a timeline, however provisionally.  That 2007 Seagull was one of the first theatre pieces that Karen and I attended after relocating to Austin five years ago. It provided our entry point to a creative culture that continues to astonish and to delight -- an experience that directly prompted the eventual establishment of AustinLiveTheatre.com. 

Austin actress Liz Fisher and her husband Robert Matney were both in that memorable Seagull and in subsequent Breaking String productions. Last year during the company's second annual New Russian Drama Festival, Fisher and friends got together to do a staged reading of VF+T, presented as lagniappe to the company's full staging of Kurochkin's The Education of Bento Bonchev. She later agreed to direct a fully staged production of Kurochkin's comic and decidedly odd little twenty-first-century morality play. It opens this week at the Hyde Park Theatre for a three-weekend run.


Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . . 

Upcoming: Vodka, Fucking and Television by Maksym Kurochkin, Breaking String Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, November 29 - December 15

is proud to present

Vodka, Fucking and Television

by Maksym Kurochkin, translated by John J. Hanlon
directed by Liz Fisher

November 29 - December 15
Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m.
Industry night Monday, December 3
Back-to-back performances (8pm, 10:00pm) on Friday December 14, Saturday December 15
Talk-back Saturday, Dec 8 (With special guest - Translator John J. Hanlon)
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St. at Guadalupe
General Admission: $15 - 25, Sliding scale
● Student rush tickets released 10 minutes before curtain for all performances: $10
● Available at breakingstring.com/tickets and 512-784-1465


Widely regarded as one of Russia’s greatest living playwrights, Maksym Kurochkin was introduced to Austin in 2011 at Breaking String Theater Co.’s inaugural New Russian Drama Festival; he would return as the spotlight artist for New Russian Drama Festival 2012, which saw the American premiere of his play The Schooling of Bento Bonchev. Kurochkin’s plays’ imagination, immediacy, irreverence and humor have made him a sensation in Russia and now in Texas, and Breaking String is excited to extend its relationship with Max’s work.

Vodka, Fucking and Television is a dark comedy about a struggling writer, and the vices holding him back. But Kurochkin gives this plot a surprising twist: The vices become personified, and each gets a chance to justify their presence in the hero's life, or get the boot. Inspired by artistic malaise, Vodka,Fucking and Television is like the Cohen Brothers' Barton Fink meets Sartre's No Exit.

Led by director(and frequent Breaking String collaborator) Liz Fisher and featuring performances by noted artists Adriene Mishler, Joey Hood, Jude Hickey and Noel Gaulin, and design by Ia Enstera (scenic), Steven Shirey (lights), Glenda Barnes (costumes) and Lowell Bartholomee (video), and set within the embracing closeness of Hyde Park Theatre’s black box theatre space, VF&T promises to make a splash in Austin this holiday season.


MAKSYM KUROCHKIN is recognized as one of the most imaginative playwrights in Moscow today, “the ideal playwright for the global age,” as Moscow Times critic John Freedman defined him. He was introduced to Austin audiences in 2011, when Breaking String premiered a staged reading of his play, Repress and Excite. In 2012, Breaking String spotlit his work during New Russian Drama Festival 2012, which featured the American premiere of Kurochkin’s The Schooling of Bento Bonchev. In response to Bento and the festival staged readings, Austin Chronicle Arts Editor Robert Faires wrote, “These plays' irreverence, imagination, and immediacy were so familiar and engaging that if I hadn't alreadyknown they were minted in Moscow, I might have taken them for plays created locally.”

Regarding his accomplishments in Russia, Kurochkin is the recipient of the Boldest Experiment of the Year award from the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily for Kitchen, the Moscow New Drama award for the futuristic comedy Titus the Irreproachable, and the Russian Anti-Booker award for experimenting with new avenues in drama. In Afisha magazine, Russian critic Yelena Kovalskaya named Kitchen one of the top 20 plays in Russia in the first decade of the century.

The Moscow Times named his Repress and Excite the best play of the 2006-7 Moscow season. Translations of that play and Vodka, Fucking, and Television, his trailblazing work from 2003, appeared in TheatreForum magazine. A translation of The Schooling of Bento Bonchev was workshopped at Towson University in 2010 and published in Performing Arts Journal. Titus the Irreproachable, translated by Noah Birksted-Breen, was a featured reading at the Russian Theatre Festival in London in February 2010. John J. Hanlonʼs translation of Mooncrazed was presented at the HotINK festival at NYU in January 2010.


This translation of Vodka, Fucking and Television was produced under the auspices of the CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL THEATER DEVELOPMENT’s New Voices / New Visions initiative. The Center for International Theatre Development, led by Philip Arnoult, has been a frequent collaborator with Breaking String in bringing the best that contemporary Russian theater has to offer, home to Austin, TX.

BREAKING STRING THEATER, founded and led by Producing Artistic Director Graham Schmidt, produces drama important to Russian culture and exposes Austin audiences to new developments in Russian theater. We do this by staging excellent productions of Russian traditional and avant-garde plays, providing artists with a creative, respectful and professional work environment, and pursuing collaboration with Russian theater artists, notably through our annual New Russian Drama Festival, where we spotlight high-profile Russian playwrights and bring them to Austin for brief residencies, as well as premieres of new plays.

BREAKING STRING THEATER is a sponsored project of the Austin Creative Alliance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Breaking String Theater enjoys core funding support from the City of Austin’s Cultural Arts Committee, and for this production of Vodka, Fucking and Television, we received a Q Rental Subsidy Grant from the Austin Creative Fund.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Upcoming: The Head, Hands and Toes Tango Show by Tongue & Groove Theatre, September 9 - 18

Received directly:

presents

The Head, Hands, and Toe Tango Show!

directed by David Yeakle

September 9 - 18, Fridays - Sundays at 8 p.m.

Kenny Dorham's Back Yard, 1106 E. 11th Street (click for map)

Tickets are available at the door. $10/adults, $5/children 12 and under.

Opening September 9, The Head, Hands, and Toe Tango Show! is a delightful, family-friendly series of vignettes performed to tango tunes. Directed by David Yeakle, this unique production features the on-stage talents of Greg Griffin, Miranda Guillory, Matthew Barrera, Roxanne Rohmann, Zach Pettichord, Blake Addyson, Gricelda Silva, Adrienne Mishler, and Harmony Zambrano. Performances are Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, September 9-18. All shows are at 8:00pm at Kenny Dorham’s Back Yard, 1106 East 11^th Street (3 blocks east of I-35, next to the Victory Grill) near downtown Austin.

Live theatre under the Texas sky! Free parking! Lawn seating and concessions available.

This original production is made with the cooperation and generous support of DiverseArts culture works.

[Image by Wendy Mitchell]

Upcoming: Flying by Olga Mukhina, Breaking String Theatre at the Off Center, January 28 - February 19

Received directly and researched on-line:

i

in association with the Rude Mechanicals proudly presents

the North American premiere of

Flying

by Olga Mukhina
translated by John Freedman

directed by Graham Schmidt

at the Off Center, 2211 Hidalgo Street (click for map)

January 28 - February 19

January 28, 29, 30 (Friday - Saturday; Sunday at 5 p.m.)

February 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Thursday - Monday)

February 10, 11, 13, 14 (Thursday - Monday)

February 16, 17, 18, 19 (Thursday - Saturday)

Performances at 8 p.m. except for Sunday, January 30

Tickets * $15-25 General Admission

* Mondays (February 7 and 14) are pay-what-you-want industry nights

A group of Russia’s so-called “golden youth,” smart, talented, well-heeled twenty-somethings are heading for disaster. Among them are DJs, VJs, PR agents and on-screen presenters for a hot new youth-oriented Moscow television production company. These people, with hip-sounding names like Snowstorm, Maniac, Snowflake and Orangina, are creating and living the images that will define the future. None wastes much time thinking about why one of their group is repeatedly battered by her husband or why another constantly takes tranquilizers to maintain her cool, collected image. But when an unsullied teenage girl joins their group one day, they are compelled to look beyond the usual limits of their purview. And when Snowstorm is arrested for possession of drugs and Orangina undergoes a religious experience, the insular nature of their world is quickly breached.

Breaking String has been proud to collaborate with playwright Olga Mukhina and critic / translator John Freedman in the development of this production.

The Cast: Jesse Bertron, David Boss, Joey Hood, Michelle Keffer, Adriene Mishler, Michael Plaster, Gricelda Silva, Jacob Trussell, Katie Van Winkle

The Crew: Graham Schmidt (Director), Angelica Mañez (Stage Manager), Adriene Mishler (Director of Movement) Ia Ensterä (Set Designer), Jamie Urban (Costume Designer), Steven Shirey (Lighting Designer), Justin Sherburn (Music and Sound Designer), Eric Johnson (Carpenter / Electrician)

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .