The rise and fall of yeast
A chat with Tony Award-winners Kotis and Hollmann about their musical comedy ‘Yeast Nation’
Perhaps the only piece of musical theatre ever set in the primordial goo, Yeast Nation: The Triumph of Life follows a group of single-celled yeasts dwelling at the bottom of the ocean billions of years ago.
The show is half Shakespearean tragedy, half Broadway musical, with a healthy dose of irreverent humor.
Created by Tony Award-winners Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann (Urinetown), the musical is running at San Francisco’s Victoria Theatre from Oct. 3 to Nov. 1.
On the eve of the show’s West Coast premiere, we sat down with Kotis (book & lyrics) and Hollmann (music & lyrics) to discuss overpopulation, Transylvania, and Showboat, arguably the first modern musical.
Q: Greg, is it true you were inspired to write this show 20 years ago, in Transylvania?
GK: It sounds unbelievable, but I was performing with a company called the Neo-Futurists in 1995. We were invited to perform in a theatre festival in Sibiu, Romania, which happens to be in Transylvania. We went there, to Transylvania, and we performed our show, which was thrilling.
The great thing about a festival is that you do your show, and then when you’re not performing you see what everybody else is doing. One of the shows was a Greek theatre company’s production of Antigone that was performed all in Greek. I don’t know how long it really was, but it felt like it went on for four hours. By the end of the performance, I was completely hypnotized by it. It changed my life in the way that unlikely theatre productions can sometimes do.
Because it was an ancient play told in an ancient way, it got me thinking about story: how far back does it go? How far back can you go? That inevitably led to this.
Q: Mark, how hard for you was it when Greg said: ‘I’ve got one word for you: yeast!’? Did he have to work hard to convince you to go along with that?
MH: Not hard. He didn’t have to work hard for Urinetown, either. The aesthetic that we worked with in this little Chicago improv company was that we took an absurd premise and made it as good as we could — realized it. I just thought it was a funny premise and that we could do a lot with it.
Q: In Yeast Nation, we see strict authority (the rules of yeast society), and rebellion against it. There was a similar dynamic in Urinetown. Is that something you guys relate to?
MH: I think we both have felt in our personal lives and our lives as artists that we’ve been on the outside of authority. We certainly felt that way in Chicago, when we were coming up as a little theatre company, sort of mocking whatever we could.
Q: There is that element of mockery in your work. You almost give a moral, then you tear it apart.
MH: Greg calls it “a curse on both your houses.” No one’s right, and the people who think they know what is right, are wrong. So yeah, that’s sort of the rug we pull out from under people.
Q: The show features the song “Love Equals Pain.” It talks about “mind-numbing pain, soul-crushing pain.” What was going on when you wrote that?
MH: [laughs] We were trying to turn something else on its ear. So many songs talk about love being so great, but there’s a real underside to it, too, that we were trying to be realistic about.
Q: Love isn’t just pain. It can be pleasure, too. It can be productive.
GK: In our story, love is the magical extra ingredient that allows life to continue. It’s the creative destruction principle, that what came before must die so that what comes afterwards can live on.
Q: But “love allows life to continue” … It sounds almost hopeful. That doesn’t sound like you guys!
[both laugh]
GK: It’s strange. I guess as we get older, maybe we’re getting more hopeful, I don’t know. It is disappointingly hopeful, I suppose.
Q: In the show, the yeast society is dealing with resources running out, having to find new solutions. When you wrote the show, did you feel humans were in that situation?
GK: Absolutely. It’s all about overpopulation, and the consequences of our success as a species. There were one billion on the planet in 1800 and there are seven billion now. It’s projected that by 2050 they’ll be nine and half billion, something like that. That’s a reality of our life.
We’ve tried to grapple with this issue in a fun way and in this form that we love, which is musical theatre.
You know the first musical, right? Showboat, arguably.
MH: It was a modern-feeling musical that integrated a score and a story…
GK: Showboat, I think, was wrestling with big issues: race, domestic abuse. It was serious stuff. So when I think of serious stuff, it leads me to this.
Q: There seems to be a tug of war between idealism and cynicism with you guys. Can you talk about that balance?
MH: I think sometimes the stuff I’ve written might be a little more idealistic. Because we work on the lyrics together, Greg is able to revise those into something that has more of an edge. That’s where we collaborate and meet.
Q: So it’s a Yin and Yang type of thing?
GK: Absolutely. I think it’s a conversation. I think we have that in us, anyway. Don’t we constantly toggle between despair and hope? You can’t exist entirely in one. Human condition — oh well.
[This interview was conducted by Sam-Omar Hall. It has been edited for length and readability.]
Yeast Nation: The Triumph of Life runs Oct. 3 to Nov. 1 at the Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St. (at Mission) in San Francisco. It’s presented by Ray of Light Theatre. Tickets available from the ROLT.
The show was first performed in Juno, Alaska in 2007. It also played at the New York International Fringe Festival in 2011
The show features:
Teresa Attridge — Jan-the-Sly
Danny Cozart — Jan-the-Elder
Mary Kalita — The New One
Courtney Merrell — Jan-the-Sweet
Heather Orth — Jan-the-Unnamed
Kevin Singer — Jan-the-Second-Oldest
Mischa Stephens — Jan-the-Wise
Directed by Jason Hoover. Musical director Ben Prince.
