Note from Adaptor and Director

Esaú Mora

This year’s Youth Company programme has been curated with the intention of inviting audiences to consider the meaning of inheritance, and to give the ATC Youth Company members the agency to assert an incontrovertible truth: that as the people who will inherit the Earth, young artists are best-placed to interrogate exactly what that means, and question what we’re forcing them to live with; what sort of planet? What sort of political and social behaviour? What sort of art?

Esaú Mora’s brilliant adaptation of Ubu Roi (Alfred Jarry, 1896) is a wonderful way to begin our time together – working with something rowdy and bold and naughty; a wonderful tonic (yet by no means, a cure) for the myriad sad circumstances that this generation of young people have already had to face over the last three years, and are set to face in the future.

Daddy Ubu is playful and irreverent and also happens to be perennially relevant to the politics – or at the very least, the political sensibilities – of the powers that be.

Through this work, we look to the past in order to see into the future and boldly ask of our artistic inheritance: what relevance do classic texts have now, and should they be the endless, rolling inheritance they appear to be?

Regardless of your answer, I recommend Daddy Ubu be served as a naughty digestif to your viewing of Auckland Theatre Company’s King Lear, (or a cheeky aperitif if you haven’t seen it yet –hurry, ends this week!)

Many of you are asking “is a century old play worth producing?” Yes! – but only if it serves my better interests.

As a 19 year old drama student, I stumbled upon a well-worn copy of Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry. Within hours, Jarry kicked in the holy gates of my theatre education and laid a fat colourful turd. Its fury, its irreverence, its camp appropriation of Shakespearean stereotypes both enraptured and kicked a dent into my artistic aesthetics. A decade later, as the world careened into chaos, I sat in mandatory isolation and revisited that same book. This politically charged farce helped me cope with the absurdity of our time.

When given the opportunity to direct for the ATC Youth Company, an adaptation of Ubu Roi was a no-brainer. I wanted to create something that was equally delightful and confronting. Thus, Daddy Ubu is a joyful, nihilistic, and filthy little spectacle. It selfishly leans into depravity, it rejoices in the abuse of power, and it is virtueless. Where most theatre is a warm cup of tea, this is a shot of tequila!

Daddy Ubu is 75 minutes long without an interval. It is the first ATC Youth Company show of 2023. Contains strong language, sacrilegious content, sexual themes, violence, implied drug use.

About The Show

Daddy Ubu and Mommy Ubu have a pretty decent life, with Daddy Ubu serving as the Captain of Dragoons, and a trusted officer to the current monarch of Poland, King Wenceslas. But when Mommy Ubu grows tired of her lower high class privileges, and Daddy Ubu yearns for more riches, she convinces Daddy Ubu to overthrow the royal family of Poland. With the help of their motley fellows they incite a holy civil-war, fighting tooth and nail to keep the crown.

Creatives

Adaptor and Director Esaú Mora

Production Design Siobhan (Von) Ridgley

Sound Design and Composer

Hannah Lynch

Movement Direction Rose Philpott

Intimacy Coordinator Todd Emerson

Lighting Design and Technical Operator Luuk Heijnen (Youth Company, 2023)

Thanks To

Jordan Windsor, Sean Wallace, Andrew Allemora

We acknowledge the members of the ATC Youth Company

Keltie-Kewan Young, Kais Azimullah, Sahil Goyal, and Te Ohorere Williams, who are not in Daddy Ubu due to illness or their participation in King Lear at the ASB Waterfront Theatre.

Youth Company Cast

Chloe Bettina Queen Rosemonde, Dancing Rat, Dolphin, Polish Soldier, Public, Noble 4, Shadow

Zoe Courtney Giron, Peasant 3, Noble

Brandon Cudby Daddy Ubu

Chinmaya Dixit King Wenceslas, Noble 5, Peasant, Lonely Guard, Polish Soldier, Shadow, Seaman

Erin McCarthy Ballsy, Atttendant, Captain, Cavalry, Peasant, Russian soldier, Shadow

Hazel Oh Mommy Ubu

Shanna Paese Cotice, Messenger, Magistrate, Public

Megan Pochin Pile, Noble 2, Magistrate

Nikolai Puharich Captain Bordure, Dolphin, Noble 2

Kalia Regan Bugger, Seaman

Luka Wolgram Cavalry, Dolphin, Financier, Peasant, Polish Soldier, Royal Soldier

Zane Samuel Wood Laidsly, Czar Alexis, Shadow, Noble 1, Peasant, Bear, Seaman