How do you kick off an Asian American-centered experimental theater show? For the San Francisco Neo-Futurists, the answer is simple: Get everyone in the cast and audience to name the five hottest Asians they know.<\/p>\n
This Friday and Saturday, the experimental theater collective San Francisco Neo-Futurists performed their show \u201c99 Wrench Market,\u201d a specialty version of their long-running weekly show, \u201cThe Infinite Wrench.\u201d The show, premiering just after the start of Lunar New Year, features an all-Asian American subset of the group\u2019s typical cast. The result is a raw and raucous night of laughs, sobs and lingering thoughts.<\/p>\n
The venue for \u201c99 Wrench Market\u201d was wedged between a 7-Eleven and a shawarma spot, one block away from the lights and glamour of Union Square. To enter, attendees passed by the entrance to other performance spaces, climbed up a flight of stairs and walked through the doors of Theater 33, entering the absurdly affecting world of \u201c99 Wrench Market.\u201d Fittingly, the theater has 99 seats.<\/p>\n
The format of the show was the same as other renditions of \u201cThe Infinite Wrench.\u201d There are 60 minutes on the clock and 30 plays to perform. At the close of every play, audience members yell out a number from a menu \u2014 the show\u2019s equivalent of a program \u2014 to determine the next microplay. If the clock runs out and there are still plays left on the menu, the show ends anyway.<\/p>\n
The effect of this democratic play selection \u2014 combined with a well-curated menu \u2014 is deeply eccentric, eclectic and inviting. The first play on Friday night was a lighthearted spoken word musical performance by Topher Lin, a co-producer of \u201c99 Wrench Market,\u201d that bemoans his inability to understand the work of Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Another play, titled \u201cOur own tiny Salesforce tower,\u201d concluded in under 30 seconds, during which a colorful light-up ball was attached to the tip of a large clear upright dildo. Taken one way, it\u2019s a parody of San Francisco\u2019s phallic tech bro egotism; taken another way, it\u2019s just a funny genitalia joke.<\/p>\n
Aside from that kind of lighthearted brevity, many of the plays were more poignant. In \u201cASMars (bimbo edition),\u201d Mars C. Ibarra discusses their polished nails and gender identity while parodying an ASMR video. In \u201cCut Fruit Monologue,\u201d Lin delivers a heart-wrenching speech about his relationship with his parents while violently chopping apples onstage.<\/p>\n
All this reflects the intentionality of each play, gesturing to the importance of community support and love. In one play, cast member Wallace Yan reflects on giving aluminum cans to Cantonese-speaking elders in Mission Dolores Park, who are selling the cans for much-needed money. In another, two cast members sing the San Francisco Rapid Response Network phone number as a catchy and heartwarming song.<\/p>\n
Although this is the SF Neo-Futurists\u2019 first all-Asian American show, it\u2019s part of the group\u2019s tradition of embracing diversity and representation, especially at a time when immigrant communities worry about the threat of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The group is donating half the proceeds to Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that provides legal representation to Asian and Pacific Islander communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe (SF) Neo-Futurists is a group that, in 2013, started off not very diverse,\u201d Lin explained after the show. \u201cOver time, the group has worked very intentionally to expand the diversity of the group so that we can reflect the lived experiences of people in the Bay Area, which is a very diverse place.\u201d<\/p>\n
In any case, they\u2019re doing something right. At a time when many theaters across the Bay Area are struggling, the SF Neo-Futurists continue to sell out shows such as \u201c99 Wrench Market.\u201d If the audience\u2019s fervent menu orders at the end of each microplay are anything to go by, something about the company\u2019s ethos keeps audiences coming back for more.<\/p>\n
The Friday show didn\u2019t manage to get through all 30 plays, but that\u2019s okay. The SF Neo-Futurists\u2019 Asian America is earnest and visionary at a time when that\u2019s needed most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you kick off an Asian American-centered experimental theater show? For the San Francisco Neo-Futurists, the answer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[41211,90480,90482,18367,2241,90477,90486,2872,90485,90481,101,103,90478,102,90487,104,106,105,90479,90483,5995,90484],"class_list":{"0":"post-193297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-7-eleven","9":"tag-99-wrench-market","10":"tag-api-legal-outreach","11":"tag-asian-american","12":"tag-comedy","13":"tag-experimental-theater","14":"tag-haruki-murakami","15":"tag-immigrants","16":"tag-mars-c-ibarra","17":"tag-microplay","18":"tag-san-francisco","19":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","20":"tag-san-francisco-neo-futurists","21":"tag-san-francisco-news","22":"tag-san-francisco-rapid-response-network","23":"tag-sf","24":"tag-sf-headlines","25":"tag-sf-news","26":"tag-the-infinite-wrench","27":"tag-topher-lin","28":"tag-union-square","29":"tag-wallace-yan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}