KING UBU

Mona Foma & Terrapin Theatre, 2020

Writer: Willoh S. Weiland

Director: Sam Routledge

Musical Director: Brian Ritchie

Sound Artist: Dylan Sheridan

Arrangements: Dean Stevenson

Band: Dean Stevenson, Emily Sanzaro, Spike Mason and Yyan Ng

Puppet Maker: Bryony Anderson

Costume Designer: Sabio Evans

Cast: Kris McQuade, John Xintavelonis, Denni Proctor, Marcus McKenzie, Anna Barber, Lucy McDonald and Lauren Neal

Puppeteers: Felicity Horsley, Shannon McGurgan, Rachel Arianne Ogle and Sofie Burgoyne

…a commanding piece of show-making.
- Robert Jarman, Arts Hub

Come one, come all, to our natural amphitheatre of rock and water (aka the Gorge) for a larger-than-life puppet extravaganza based on Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi: a wild satire of power and greed from nineteenth-century France, updated here for modern-day Launceston.It’s a rollicking tale for the times—the story of a raging buffoon and wannabe dictator on a revolutionary rampage. ‘And it’ll be bigger than Ben Hur,’ says Mona Foma Festival Dad Brian Ritchie. But with more puppets and stuff, including performances by the local Launnie community and live music by Ritchie and his musical mates.

King Ubu is community theatre at its most inclusive, spectacular and ambitious.
- Cameron Woodhead, Sydney Morning Herald

…while it might have been full of the kind of things that sound like utter nonsense on paper – such as a king and queen played by inflatable swan-shaped pool toys… at Mona Foma, somehow it all makes sense.
- Brodie Lancaster, The Guardian