#NTW21 NATIONALTHEATREWALES.ORG A NATIONAL THEATRE WALES PRODUCTION IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY DIRECTED BY MIKE PEARSON / MIKE BROOKES SHAKESPEARE / BRECHT THE NATION OF WALES IS OUR STAGE: FROM FORESTS TO #NTW21 NATIONALTHEATREWALES.ORG BEACHES, FROM AIRCRAFT HANGARS TO POST-INDUSTRIAL TOWNS, FROM VILLAGE HALLS TO NIGHTCLUBS. WE BRING TOGETHER STORYTELLING POETS, VISUAL VISIONARIES AND INVENTORS OF IDEAS. WE COLLABORATE WITH ARTISTS, AUDIENCES, COMMUNITIES AND COMPANIES TO CREATE THEATRE IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ROOTED IN WALES, WITH AN INTERNATIONAL REACH. YOU’LL FIND US ROUND THE CORNER, ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN AND IN YOUR DIGITAL BACKYARD. STAFF TEAM MATT BALL JOHN MCGRATH CREATIVE ASSOCIATE @MATTBALL_NTW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR @JOHN_NTW MICHELLE CARWARDINE-PALMER JENNY MCCARTHY DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT FINANCE ASSISTANT @JENNY_NTW @MICHELLE_NTW YUSUF MOHAMED JULIA COLES COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ASSOCIATE (DE GABAY) HANGAR 858 COMPANY CO-ORDINATOR @JULIA_NTW @YUSUF_NTW LUCY DAVIES ANNA POOLE EXECUTIVE PRODUCER @LUCY_NTW TEAM ASSISTANT @ANNA_NTW RAF ST ATHAN DEVINDA DE SILVA GAVIN PORTER TEAM CO-ORDINATOR @DEVINDA_NTW CREATIVE ASSOCIATE (DE GABAY) @GAVINP0RTER DAVID EVANS CATRIN ROGERS VALE OF GLAMORGAN HEAD OF PRODUCTION @DAVID_NTW MEDIA OFFICER @CATRIN_NTW STEPHEN GRANT MICHAEL SALMON 8-18 AUGUS T FINANCE MANAGER @STEPHEN_NTW COMPANY ASSISTANT @MICHAEL_NTW KATHERINE JEWKES ABDUL SHAYEK DIGITAL ASSOCIATE @KATHERINE_ANN CREATIVE ASSOCIATE @ABDUL_NTW MATTHEW LAWTON JEN THORNTON COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR @MATT_NTW COMMUNICATIONS ASSISTANT @JEN_NTW BOARD OF TRUSTEES KEEP IN TOUCH STEVE BLANDFORD NATIONAL THEATRE WALES PHIL GEORGE (CHAIR) 30 CASTLE ARCADE JON GOWER CARDIFF RICHARD HOGGER CF10 1BW DEBORAH MARTELL POWELL LIKE US ON FACEBOOK: GEMMA MCAVOY NATIONAL THEATRE WALES JUDI RICHARDS CHRIS RYDE (VICE CHAIR) FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: PETER STEAD @NTWTWEETS WATCH US ON YOUTUBE: YOUTUBE.COM/NATIONALTHEATREWALES T: 029 2035 3070 E: [email protected] COVER IMAGE PHIL BOORMAN/NATIONAL THEATRE WALES DIRECTORS 2—3 GERALD TYLER PHOTOGRAPH: WARREN ORCHARD / NATIONAL THEATRE WALES CORIOLANUS: ‘THE BEAST WITH MIKE MANY HEADS BUTTS ME AWAY.’ — SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS PEARSON / MIKE BROOKES Mike Pearson was born in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire; he came Mike Brookes is an award-winning artist, director and to Wales in 1968 to study archaeology at University College, designer. Although initially trained as a painter, his work has Cardiff. He was a founder member of Transitions Community always bridged media - engaging elements as diverse as Arts Project, Cardiff (1971-2); a member of internationally photography, sampling, large scale and multiple projection, renowned physical theatre group R.A.T. Theatre (1972–3), short-range and satellite radio broadcast technology, mobile with whom he appeared at the World Theatre Festival in telephones, helicopters, cars, trains, surveillance cameras, Nancy, France. He was an artistic director of Wales-based ice sculpture and drawing - proposing innovative practices companies Cardiff Laboratory Theatre (1973–80) and Brith and strategies within the form, function, and placement of Gof (1981–97), with whom he presented performances in performance and live art. He co-founded the performance South America, Hong Kong and throughout Europe. Brith collective Pearson/Brookes with Mike Pearson in 1997, Gof was particularly noted for its large-scale, site-specific most recently co-creating their acclaimed production of productions staged in Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, The Persians for National Theatre Wales’ inaugural season. Scotland and Wales in the early 1990s. He continues to He is associate artist to dada(prod) (Italy), nido (Spain), make performance as a solo artist and with long-time and to the theatre company Quarantine (UK) with whom collaborator composer John Hardy, and since 1997 he has he has now collaborated on 11 consecutive productions. worked in partnership with artist/designer Mike Brookes in In 2007, he was appointed Creative Research Fellow Pearson/Brookes. In 2010 he directed a site-specific version within Aberystwyth University. of Aeschylus’s The Persians for National Theatre Wales on the military training ranges of mid-Wales in collaboration He is currently developing a long-term collaborative practice with Simon Banham, Mike Brookes, John Hardy and Pete with Spanish artist Rosa Casado, producing live art and Telfer. He is co-author with Michael Shanks of Theatre/ gallery works under the umbrella title ‘some things happen Archaeology (2001) and author of In Comes I: Performance, all at once, some things happen more slowly’. His work has Memory and Landscape (2006); Site-Specific Performance been commissioned and shown in North and South America, (2010) and Mickery Theatr: an imperfect archaeology (2011). Asia, Australasia, and throughout Europe. Recent awards He has taught in the Department of Theatre, Film and include: The Arts Council Creative Wales Award 2007; CCG Television Studies since 1997 and is currently Professor Fellowship, Centro de Arte Torrente Ballester, Ferrol (Spain) of Performance Studies. 2008; MAPA Residency, Girona (Spain) 2008; Bilbao Eszena Residency, Bilbao (Spain), 2009 and 2010; winner of the TMA In October 2012 he begins a two-year Leverhulme Major Best Design Award 2010; and a PACT Zollverein residency Research Fellowship: to recall experiences of theatre-making award, Essen (Germany) 2012. in Cardiff in the early 1970s in a new book and through restaging elements of his early work. DIRECTOR / DRAMATURG MIKE PEARSON DIRECTOR / DESIGNER MIKE BROOKES BY MIKE PEARSON 4—5 MIKE BROOKES AND MIKE PEARSON PHOTOGRAPH: WARREN ORCHARD / NATIONAL THEATRE WALES SICINIUS: ‘WHAT IS THE CITY FRAMING BUT THE PEOPLE?’ — SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS THE TEXT In 75 AD, Plutarch sets down the story of Roman warrior The overarching theme is politics: martial life versus Caius Martius, later Coriolanus. He has: ‘A voice and look increasing, though provisional, bureaucracy: the emergence which made him a fearful man for a foe to encounter’; though of a world in which Coriolanus finds it difficult to even in this first appearance: ‘He found the chief end of glory locate himself. He is a battle-hardened war machine, an in his mother’s gladness.’ Between 1605 and 1608, at a time anachronism: the product of his caste, his mother’s ambition of rural unrest, William Shakespeare dramatises it: ‘From and his own impulsive nature. It’s all now happening in face to foot he was a thing of blood, whose every motion the public domain: event follows event, wave upon wave, was timed with dying cries.’ Between 1952 and 1955, Bertolt experienced and dealt with expediently, as they arrive. The Brecht adapts Shakespeare’s version, aiming to recover it military hero is out of his element in this civic arena; he from fascist appropriation and ‘to experience the tragedy not is unable – or refuses – to perform a role for the plebeian only of Coriolanus himself but also of Rome, and specifically public, to play a part, to act politically. In this, ironically, of the plebs’: ‘Down with him! Down with the grain robber!’ he is perhaps the only constant figure in the drama. In 1972, Günther Grass critiques Brecht’s own attempt to Shakespeare’s world is crowded: unlike other tragic direct Shakespeare’s version during the 1953 uprising in East protagonists, Coriolanus is rarely alone – he has few private Germany: ‘The people have risen.’ moments, little room or opportunity to go away to reflect on his condition and only two soliloquies. That and the Coriolanus...Coriolan...The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising... In play’s open and direct setting – there are no sub-plots, 2012? Coriolan/us: Shakespeare infused with Brecht’s words, very few indoor scenes yet ever-present crowds – make in the mouths of Citizens at least. And perhaps too a hint of it a fascinating counterpoint to current political events Peter Brook’s 1968 RSC production, enigmatically entitled US. – with their unreliable leaderships, ad-hoc factions and Coriolan; Us; Coriolan/us. As the Tribunes protest: ‘What is the coalitions, fleeting allegiances and shifting loyalties, civic city but the people?’ uncertainties and disturbances, military adventurism and fledgling democracies – and attendant round-the-clock news and social media. A conjoined world of celebrity and CITIZENS: ‘DOWN WITH HIM! DOWN surveillance: of constant media attention and intrusion, of embedded transmission, of improvised recording and WITH THE GRAIN ROBBER!’ uploading, of covert monitoring... — BRECHT’S CORIOLAN The narrative of Caius Martius Coriolanus threads five COMINIUS: irreconcilable strands of conflict: wars between the infant ‘FROM FACE TO FOOT HE WAS Roman republic and the neighbouring state of the Volsces; A THING OF BLOOD, WHOSE EVERY MOTION the intense personal rivalry between Coriolanus, Rome’s greatest soldier and the Volscan leader, Tullus Aufidius; the WAS TIMED WITH DYING CRIES.’ struggle for power in Rome between the patrician class and — SHAKESPEARE’S CORIOLANUS the plebeians; the battle of wills between Coriolanus and his Why Coriolan/us? Because it is always unsettling: seeming mother Volumnia over political expediency; and the tensions to reflect the time in which we live without offering any within Coriolanus himself in his desire for revenge against easy solutions. Because it is always contemporary: ever Rome following his banishment. And the implications, challenging of our beliefs, demanding of us that we think effects and outcomes