The old Man and the Sea

"Hemingway with cuban locals" John F. Kennedy Library, Boston	World Premiere Adaptation by Jubilith Moore with Theatre of Yugen of Ernest Hemingway's *The Old Man and the Sea* April 28 - May 21, 2005 at NOHspace Directed by Jubilith Moore Performed by Sheila Berotti, Lluis Valls, Libby Zilber and Max Music composed by Dylan Bolles and performed with Greg Beuthin Set Design - Kana Tanaka Light Design - Stephen Siegel Prop/Puppet Design - Max Costume Design - Christephor Gilbert

This adaptation of The Old Man and the Sea questions boundaries between performing and visual art disciplines as well as cultural boundaries. What is the effect when a literary classic is adapted to the stage? When the work of a 20th century American literary lion is filtered through Theatre of Yugen — what remains true? At what point does an art installation become a theatrical set? Theatre of Yugen has a long history of creating theatrical adaptations from literary texts and continues it's signature experimental work based in a discipline of the classic Japanese theater forms - Noh and Kyogen. In September of 1952 the whole of The Old Man and the Sea appeared in Life magazine, selling over 5 million copies almost instantly. The next week Scribners rolled out the first hardcover edition of 50,000 copies and they too sold out quickly. The book was a huge success both critically and commercially and though Hemingway had known great success before, he had yet to receive any major literary prizes. The Old Man and the Sea changed that, winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953 and on October 28, 1954 he won the Nobel Prize for literature. The Old Man and the Sea tells of an impoverished old man, his love for a young man who also loves him, and his trials in bringing in a big fish. We are introduced to the old fisherman Santiago, who has not caught a fish in 84 days, and his young fishing partner Manolin. We follow Santiago through the next five days as he is literally dragged far out into the waters north of Cuba by a great marlin. After three days of battling the great fish, and going far beyond the limits of himself, Santiago defeats the marlin only to later have it be destroyed by the numerous sharks who attack it on his way back to Havana. Hemingway's basic acknowledgement of the human soul's will to live, to endure and to defy comes across strongly in this short simple novel. Santiago loses the fish, and yet this loss is, indirectly, affirmative. The Company will utilize the intense, restrained and stylized acting style specific to the Japanese Noh tradition to capture the "hard-boiled" nature of Hemingway's original text. The cast includes Theatre of Yugen's Joint Artistic Directors: Lluis Valls and Libby Zilber. Bay Area puppeteer Max will bring to the production not only her unique skills as a puppeteer but also will be working with glass installation artist Kana Tanaka in creating the look of the set. Kana is originally from Japan and has an extensive background in the creation of glass art. This will be her first collaboration with Theatre of Yugen. Return to top
The Ensemble
SHEILA BEROTTI role of Manolin, Ensemble	Sheila first trained with Theatre of Yugen in 1998. She learned the role of Master in Busu (Sweet Poison) and was koken for the 1999 production of Sisa in Project Artaud Theater. After doing "other things" (mostly yoga classes and improv based comedy sketches) for five years, she reconnected with the Theatre of Yugen and underwent more training. She is now a Junior Company member.
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GREG BEUTHIN Musician	Greg is a playwright, percussionist and performer, and a founding member of Balé Techlorico, a multi-disciplinary group that blends folkloric performance and percussion with urban theatre and music. Beuthin's work has been seen at the NYC Hip Hop Theatre Festival and at the San Francisco and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. He has been a finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights' Festival, the Heideman Award, and the Rella Lossy Playwright-In-Residence Award and in 2002, Beuthin was awarded a Theatre Bay Area CA$H Grant. Beuthin performs Afro-Caribbean percussion with Liberation Ensemble, Espiritu da Samba, Santero and Los Nadies. He has appeared on stage at Intersection for the Arts and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as part of the 2004 Hybrid Workshop; at the Exit Theatre, Studio Z and Punch Gallery with Balé Techlorico; and at Brava Theatre with Culture Works.
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DYLAN BOLLES Composer Musician	Dylan is a composer, performer and instrument builder who creates original theatre works and performance installations. His work is intrinsically collaborative and encompasses a wide range of music and performance genres. Bolles is a co-founder of Music for People and Thingamajigs, an annual festival for tunings not traditionally western, made/found instruments, environments and people.
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CHRISTEPHOR GILBERT Costume Design	Christephor has worked as a costume designer, choreographer and performer in the Bay Area, Kentucky, New Hampshire, New York and Hawaii. He has designed costumes for Theatre of Yugen, Strong Current Dance Company, Bill Evans, New Girl Productions, University of Hawaii, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, and Stage One: Theatre for Young Audiences. In December 2004, Gilbert produced Assemble Emotion: an evening of dance as a fundraising event at NOHspace for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. Twice recognized by the National Dance Association as an Outstanding Student of Dance, Gilbert holds a B.A. in Theatre and Dance from Bard College and an M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Hawaii.
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MAX Puppet and Props Designer Ensemble	Max creates puppets and environments using materials as varied as fire, cloth, metal, papier-mache and plastic. She has worked as a puppeteer for Brooklyn's Art at St. Anne's and performed as a shadow puppeteer for the New Conservatory Theater. Original puppet productions in San Francisco include Killing Mom, Hop, Sweet Meat and The Sand Child, a solo shadow show. Most recently, she designed the set and props as well as performed as the guest puppetry artist in Theatre of Yugen's production of Frankenstein, for which she was nominated for a BACC award. Max also works as a lighting designer and stilt walker.
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JUBILITH MOORE Director	A graduate of Bard College, Jubilith is one of three Artistic Directors of Theatre of Yugen and has been with the company, and a student of founder Yuriko Doi, since 1993. She has also studied Noh with Richard Emmert and Akira Matsui (Kita school) and was selected by the Japan Foundation as one of their Artist Fellows in 2001. While in Japan, she continued training with Richard Emmert and had the honor of studying with Kanze School Noh master Shiro Nomura, Kyogen master Yukio Ishida (Izumi school) and Kotsuzumi Noh drum with Mitsuo Kama (Ko school). Moore has performed many leading and supporting roles in Theatre of Yugen productions. In Spring 2002, she worked collectively with Theatre of Yugen's Joint Artistic team to create the original experimental piece The Clay Play. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at San Francisco's School of the Arts since 1998.
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STEPHEN SIEGEL Light Design	A lighting designer for dance, theatre, and live music, Stephen has designed for The 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, Asian American Theatre Company, Amy Hill, Takami, Hiroko Tamano, Pauline Oliveros, Strangefruit, Eri Majima, Ashpool, Theatre of Yugen's Yugen Presents Series and many others. As an ensemble member of Theatre of Yugen, he also studies and performs Kyogen and Noh. Stephen recently won a BACC award for his light design for Theatre of yugen's Frankenstein.
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KANA TANAKA Set Design	Kana is an installation artist who uses glass to explore light and optical phenomena and to challenge conventional ways of seeing. Tanaka was born and raised in Aichi, Japan. In the Arts and Crafts Dept. at the National Aichi University of Education in Japan, she specialized in glassblowing. In an M.FA. program at Rhode Island School of Design (1996-1999), she began making site-specific installation works that involve the viewer in more rich and multi-dimensional ways. She was awarded an artists grant from Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 2001 and a grant from POLA Art Foundation of Tokyo in 2002. She just completed public art projects awarded by Solano County and City of Davis. Her large-scale glass sculptures are permanently installed in Davis and Fairfield, CA. Her work can be seen at www.kanatanaka.com
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LLUÍS VALLS role of Santiago Ensemble	Lluis is one of Theatre of Yugen's Joint Artistic Directors. Originally from Barcelona Spain, Valls holds a B.A. in Dramatic Arts from San Francisco State University, where he studied Suzuki Method with Dr. Yukihiro Goto. Since 1993, Valls has worked with theatre director Yuriko Doi performing on tour in Theatre of Yugen's repertoire of Kyogen comedies and in several notable main-stage productions, including as Coyote 2/Chorus in Erik Ehn's Crazy Horse; the Waki (secondary role) in the modern Noh play The Well of Ignorance (or Down the Dark Well) by Dr. Tomio Tada; and the Old Man in Yuriko Doi's Noh adaptation of Yeats' Purgatory. He has worked collectively with Theatre of Yugen's Joint Artistic Directors to create three original experimental pieces: The Clay Play (2002), Norton I, (Being the Most Noble Tale of the Fall and Rise of Joshua Abraham Norton, Emperor of the United States of America and Protector of All Mexico) 2003, and Erik Ehn's Frankenstein (2003 and 2004), in which he performed both the title role and the Monster. Valls performs in the company's repertoire of Kyogen comedies both at home and on tour - most recently At the Hawk's Well National Tour in 2002 in Tied to a Pole and in the title piece with Tokyo's Theatre Nohgaku, of which he is a founding member.
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LIBBY ZILBER role of the Marlin Ensemble	Libby holds degrees in Theater and French from Lawrence University (1982) and is a graduate of The Drama Studio of London at Berkeley (1985). She started performing with Theatre of Yugen in 1986 in Shogo Ohta's Komachi Fuden, following which she began studying with Yuriko Doi, touring locally and nationally with the company and their repertoire of Kyogen comedic plays. Main-stage roles in experimental fusion productions include Estragon in Waiting for Godot, Komachi in Sotoba Komachi, the shite (protagonist) in Janine Beichman's modern Noh play Drifting Fires and the Grandmother/Attorney in the award-winning Kokoro/True Heart. She served as Assistant Director for the Noh and Native American collaboration of Erik Ehn's Crazy Horse. As Theatre of Yugen's Joint Artistic Director, she spearheaded a Theatre of Yugen collectively created original piece, The Clay Play, served as a "Third Eye" director on Norton I, and created the role of Elizabeth in Erik Ehn's Frankenstein. Zilber also studies with Noh master Akira Matsui and Nohkan flute with Richard Emmert.
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	This production is funded in part by Grants for the Arts/SF Hotel Tax Fund, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, thw W.A. Gerbode Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts which believes that a great nation deserves great art.
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