[image_spread img_url="https://thfl.cms.ar ts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2022/03/Coriolanus-2000x1125.jpg" cap tion="Artwork by Jonathan Wood" width="website"]
b
y William Shakespeare
Directed by Tanya Mathivanan
A violent\, p olitical tragedy written in the last few years of Shakespeare’s life\, Coriolanus explores the tension between military force and popular rul e. It follows the downfall of the decorated soldier\, Coriolanus\, who is b anished from Rome due to his disdain of the common people. Enraged\, he doe s the unthinkable and returns to wage war against the very people he had sw orn to protect.
[accordions collapsible=true active=false][accordion title="Director's Message"]
Coriolanus is not a play that is often produced. It is Shakespeare’s most political play and has a protagon ist that has historically been viewed as unlikeable and problematic. And ye t\, Coriolanus is my favourite Shakespearean play. I am fascinated by the theme of hypermasculinity and how it plays a destructive role in so ciety. I find the themes of military force in tension with popular rule\, c ivic duty and despair resonant in our contemporary historical moment. I fir st encountered this play as an undergraduate and fell completely in love wi th it. It evoked so many thoughts and feelings in me\, and three questions in particular have haunted me ever since: What is the role of the military in the toxic hypermasculinity of men? What is the concept of “civility”\, w hen it is rooted in bloodshed\, conquering and the colonization of land? Wh at is the teleological function of war and the body of the soldier in relat ion to society?
What better way\, then\, to explore the perfo rmativity of hypermasculinity and gender roles than with an all-woman/non-b inary cast.
The world found in Coriolanus reflects a microcosm of our world. I wanted to explore the social order of this world in order to make sense of all the chaos\, violence and lack of compassion in our own. Society trains soldiers to be brutal in combat and specifically grooms them to be violently used against “others”. It then utterly rejects the soldiers when they bring that cultivated brutality back home with them . The role of the soldier is inherently utilitarian\, and therefore\, the V eteran is rejected when it is unable to transition to another utilitarian r ole in society. There is also an exploitative and consuming need for “domin ant” or colonial societies to conquer for utilitarian purposes such as natu ral resources\, land and the stimulation of the economy. The characters in Coriolanus\, to me\, are merely products of their own restrictive society\, trying to survive in the machine that they are all specific\, ass igned functional parts of. Blood is the oil that powers this machi ne.
In order for that mechanism to exist and for power to rem ain in the hands of the few\, rigid class structures\, gender roles and mil itary roles have to be imposed on the citizens. Beneath that veneer of enfo rced civility and order\, however\, bubbles the blood\, guts and brutality of a cannibalistic society. People are nothing but meat sacks to be consume d.
I wanted to create a world that is equally mechanical\, ae sthetically captivating and nuanced. I settled on Steampunk and Dieselpunk as aesthetic markers.
These genres are “historical adjacent”\, and en capsulate past\, present and future in one temporal sphere. Victorian Steam punk captures the ideas of industry\, expansion\, consumption\, grandiosity \, opulence and the revolution. It ties into the idea of Rome as the Imperi al Colonial State that is ever expanding\, and a machine that runs on the b lood of war. Dieselpunk on the other hand is what I reserved for the Volsci ans. It is an aesthetic that is all about survival and functionality.
It was vital that I create as immersive an experience as I could. I decided on staging the show in the round\, and further utilizing what has classically been seen as the “audience space”. As the audience\, what role do we play in the consumption of the violence and oppression that we see o n stage? What is our role\, therefore\, as spectators in the war\, the bloo dshed\, the cruelty\, the oppression and the subjugation that take place in the real world? And most importantly\, how do we go about changing things?
— Tanya Mathivanan\, Director [/accordion][/accordions]
[accordions collapsible=true active=false][accordion title="Cast"]
Christian Billet Young Martius\, Senator
Air Day man First Citizen\, Gentlewoman\, Roma n Soldier Messenger\, Second Volscian Servant\, Second Volscian Soldier\, S enator
Isabel Hansen V olumnia
Tirion Jones C oriolanus
Sera Jorgensen Third Citizen\, First Coriole Senator\, Second Roman Soldier\, Volscian Citizen\, First Volscian Guard\, Senator
Isabella Laesecke Brutus
Adriana McKinno n Virgilia
Kristi McQu ade Second Citizen\, First Roman Soldi er\, First Volscian Soldier\, Aedile\, Senator
Gabrielle Ne brida-Pepin Sicinius
L auren Ordeman Titus Lartius
Robyn Shanks Menenius
Nicole-Anne Smith Cominius
Mai Stone Aufidius
Jasmine White Valeria\, First
Senator\, Fourth Citizen\, First Volscian Servant\, Third Roman Soldier
[/accordion]
[accordion title="Creative Team"]
Tany a Mathivanan Direction
Lauren McLean Stage Management
Midori O’Connor Asst. Stage Management
Bekah Lazar Asst. Stage Management
Stephanie Barclay Stage Management (Swing)
Kelsey Peterso nHead Scenic Artist
Anjali Mandapaka Scenic Design
Roohi Kamal Scenic Design
Jennifer Stewart Scenic Design Guide
Chloe Bohonos Asst. Scenic Design
Ch arlotte Chang Costume Design
Chloe Earle Asst. Costume Desig n
Zac Labrie Lighting Design and Sound Design
Ben Paul Asst. Lighting Design
Amy Currie L ighting Operator
Cat Main Ass t. Production Management and Sound (QLab Programming)
Chris topher Ross-Ewart Music Composition
Jamie Son Sound (SFX Cre ation)
Kai Wong Sound (In-House Composition and Editing)
Joy Cheng Sound Operator
Mike Kovac Fig ht Direction
Sylvie La Riviere Fight Direction
Phay Moores Intimacy Direction
Sam Jeffery Intimacy Direction
[/accordion]
[accordion title="Production B uild & Installation Crew"]
Stephanie Barclay\, Isabelle Barlow\, Kail eigh Funnell\, Midori O’Connor\, Kelsey Raeanna\, Jamie Ragins\, Cheyane Se e\, Betsy Sun\, Kristine Wu\, Hannah Abbott\, Samantha Cheng\, David Moise\ , Ben Paul\, Olivia Chen\, Sophie Fougere\, Crystal Luo\, Tariro Motsi\, Ni xita Taneja\, Grycel Tercero\, Chloe Bohonos\, Roohi Kamal\, Emily Cheng\, Matthias Kammüller\, Zac Labrie\, Shaliya Ma\, Lauren McLean\, Grace Nguyen \, SuYeon Park\, Yun Shim\, Elyse Wall\, Bekah Lazar\, Taylor Wen Jingyi Ch eng\, Yena Lee\, Hallie-Ahn Duncan\, Nyssa Estrella\, Zoe Lin\, Huda Shawwa sh\, Kai Wong\, Brendan Lowe\, Taylor Wen\, Amy Currie\, Jane Kim\, Muleba Chailunga
[/accordion]
[accordion title="Worklearn Students"]Celeste Mol\, Caroline Tang\, Hannah Abbott\, Roohi Kamal
[/accor dion]
[accordion title="Faculty Advisors"]
Stephen Heatley < /b>Department Head
Jacquel ine Firkins Costume
Ro bert Gardiner Lighting
Leora Morris Direction
< b>Patrick Pennefather Sound
Brad Powers Technical Production
Patrick Rizzotti Scen ic
Lorraine West Sceni c Paint
Collette Berg Stage Management
Amber Barton Movement Coach
Sheila Langston Voice and Speech Coach
[/accordion]
[ac cordion title="Staff"]
Borja Brown Production Management
Cam Cronin Department Administrator
Ian Patton Academic Administrator
Lynn Burton Head of Properties
Jodi Jacyk Head of Wardrobe
Ryan Murcar Staff Technical Direction (Scenic)
Erika Champion Staff Technical Direction (Lights and Sound)
To ny Koelwyn Audience Services Manager
Andrea Cheng Communicat ions Specialist
Jiejun Wu Marketing and Communications Assistant
Karen Tong < span style="font-weight: 400\;">Theatre and Film Studies Graduate Secretary
Sarah Crauder Film Pr ogram Administrator
Dmitri Lennikov Film Collections Coordinator
Stuart McFarlane Film Equipment Manager
< b>Kirsten Dougans Assistant to the Hea d
[/accordion]
[/accordions]
[gallery size="medium" ids="19637\,19636\,19635\,19671\,19670\, 19669"]
Performances
March 30–
April 2\, 2022
Wednesday\, Thursday\,
and Saturday performances will start at 7:30 PM. The Friday performance wi
ll start at 7:00 PM.
Student Talk Back
F
riday\, April 1
After the show
TELUS Studio at
the Chan Centre
6265 Crescent Rd\, Vancouver\, BC V6T 1Z1
We ack nowledge that the UBC Vancouver campus is situated within the traditional\, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam.
[buttons][button li nk_text="Download the program" link_url="https://bit.ly/3uCHkeb"][/buttons]
For any questions\, please contact our box office: 604.822.6835 or box.office@ubc.ca.
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