Social issues fuel pitch-black farce in former Atlantan’s new play
This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
Steve Yockey was stoked. He had written his first play as a University of Georgia undergraduate, titled “The Waking,” and drove with his friends from Athens to Mississippi to see it staged as part of a Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival regional conference. It was loved by the students attending — and resoundingly detested by the judges.
“They said I should not be writing theater, that I did not understand what I was doing,” Yockey said. “I was devastated.” Looking back, he called that initial work “pretentious on a level I can’t even aspire to now.”
More than two decades later, no one questions Yockey’s abilities. He has 17 published plays to his name and multiple TV and film credits, including “Supernatural,” “Dead Boy Detectives” and the Emmy-nominated “The Flight Attendant.” His latest work is “Bleeding Hearts,” having its world premiere at Theatrical Outfit through Feb. 22.
It’s the story of a couple, Sloane (Veronika Duerr) and Timothy (Christopher Hampton), who try to do their idea of a good deed by bringing unhoused drifter Old Blindy (Tony Larkin) out of the cold. Everything goes spectacularly wrong — and in the midst of all that, Sloane and Timothy’s rich neighbor, Felicia (Tess Malis Kincaid), keeps stopping by to steal their belongings. The play is directed by Sean Daniels, a founder and former artistic director of Dad’s Garage.
Early on, Yockey realized that if he was going to write about income inequality and the disappearing middle class in America, he wanted some sort of cracked lens to tell the story through, since the topic is a staple on nightly news. That is when his obsession with Joe Orton — and what the British playwright did with pitch-black farces such as “What the Butler Saw,” “Loot” and “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” — kicked in.
“In front of a British audience, he would examine class and performative morality — what’s actually happening in the world — in really effective ways that were super dark but very funny,” Yockey said. “I find them to be super effective, so I gave myself the challenge of trying to do that in that medium. I think people will recognize elements of it as my work, but it’s something new for me.”
Connecting with ‘a great collaborator’
Yockey and Daniels have a long history.
In 2003, Yockey, while working at Creative Loafing, went to review “Scandal!” at Dad’s Garage and received a phone call later from Daniels offering him a job as the theater’s marketing director. He accepted.
Daniels also gave the playwright an early opportunity to have his work on stage through the short play festival “8½ x 11″ and directed Yockey’s thesis play at New York University.
“He has always been special and a great collaborator,” Yockey said. “He’s been a huge champion of this play and the discussion it provokes, but this is the first time we’ve done a production together.”
Although Theatrical Outfit staged a reading of one of his plays a few years back, Yockey hasn’t spent much time at the company outside of being an audience member.
He applied for the first round of Outfit’s Launchpad, a “made in Atlanta” festival that incubates local stories, to write his play “Venus.” Getting selected gave him access to the theater’s resources.
“For me, it was like, I really dig this place, dig what (artistic director) Matt (Torney) is doing and (dig) everyone who works here,” he said.
Malis Kincaid, the company’s development director, was part of a reading of “Bleeding Hearts” at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She liked it a lot and gave it to Theatrical Outfit Associate Artistic Director Addae Moon. From there, Torney decided to produce it.
“I was shocked,” Yockey said. “It’s not an easy play to do. I am thrilled it’s having its premiere as part of this evolution at Theatrical Outfit.”
Playwriting with a dark comic sensibility
Yockey grew up in Cobb County. His first locally produced play was “Help!” with Out of Hand Theater Co. in 2003, followed by “Sleepy” and “Skin” at Dad’s Garage. After attending Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2006, he moved to California in 2008. He’s been in Los Angeles since 2010.
His plays often share a dark comedy sensibility mixed with horror and mythic components. They often have LGBTQ+ themes as well, although that’s not the case in “Bleeding Hearts.”
The playwright doesn’t have an outright favorite from his catalog but is partial to “Pluto,” which debuted at Actor’s Express in 2013.
As he has moved around in various mediums, Yockey called them all “learn as you go situations.” “No one sits down and explains to you what the career part is like,” he said. “You learn how to write plays — the difference from TV and film and the structure. I also had to learn it was OK for me to be there.”
While Yockey writes TV and film for other people, he creates plays for himself.
“It’s my way of understanding the world,” he said. “I’ll see something and say I don’t understand that, or I don’t know why that is happening. I’ll walk around, chew on it and collect things as I am walking around the world. Then I force everyone else to watch me wrestle with that topic.”
THEATER PREVIEW
“Bleeding Hearts”
Through Feb. 22. Tickets start at $45. Theatrical Outfit’s Balzer Theater, 84 Luckie St. NW, Atlanta. theatricaloutfit.org/bleeding-hearts
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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig.
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