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Director Yuxuan Liu on VAULT Five and Caligula and the Sea
Selected as one of many VAULT Five members, Yuxuan Liu brings Caligula and the Sea to VAULT Festival from 28 February. time then to take a seat down with Yuxuan for a chat and as a bonus, author Jacey Casel joined us so as to add just a little extra about their play.
Hi Yuxuan, good to fulfill you, let’s begin with just a little about Caligula and the Sea?
Hi! My identify is Yuxuan Liu. I’m the director and lead artist for Caligula and the Sea. As a director, I principally work with devised exhibits and new writing, various from youngsters’s theatre to the reimagining of traditional performs.
Caligula and the Sea is a devised piece of recent writing about Caligula, a younger Roman emperor who was rumoured to have declared battle in opposition to the ocean. We are telling the story utilizing textual content, puppetry, music, and motion, exploring themes of energy, friendship, masculinity, and the setting.
What impressed the corporate to plan this play and select Caligula because the protagonist?
Jacey: The seed of the play was the (presumably inaccurate) story of Caligula’s declaration of battle in opposition to the ocean. What if, as an alternative of dismissing the story as a method to stop a mutiny or a misinterpretation of the Latin phrase for seashells, the emperor declared battle on Neptune?
Yuxuan: I’d say this model of Caligula is an anti-hero whose motivations in all probability don’t line up with our morality. So on prime of being an fascinating and sophisticated character, I feel his perspective, actions, and errors towards energy, love, and the co-existence with nature on this play have saved us fascinated with the relevance of his story to our world in the present day in rehearsals.
Can you discuss in regards to the creation means of Caligula and the Sea and the way it has developed over time?
Through a devised course of, all people has been capable of work carefully and organically to create this present from scratch. We are utilising textual content, motion, puppetry, authentic soundtrack, and soundscapes to inform the story. Our dramaturg and author within the room, Jacey, turned scenes devised by the corporate throughout the R&D week right into a compelling, gripping, and delightful story.
Our designers have additionally been working very carefully with us and it was so rewarding watching the design develop and develop alongside the script over the previous few months. Each aspect of the design; set, costume, sound, lighting, puppet, actually appears like a definite character by itself and so they work so integrally and in concord with one another.
I’ve actually loved enjoying round with some wild and loopy prospects all through this course of from a variety of props and sound supplies. Not all of them made it into the ultimate present… however nice enjoyable nonetheless!
We’ve additionally labored carefully with our motion director Sean Croft, who has breathed a lot life, playfulness, and precision into the motion and bodily language. Overall, our artistic course of has been so creative, enjoyable, and natural. I feel that is going to be a visually, auditorily, and textually thrilling and entertaining present to observe.
We love the outline as suggesting ‘not-so-historically-accurate’, what was your intention in such an outline?
Jacey: Something that I discover fascinating about Caligula is how few modern accounts survive of his brief time in energy. Suetonis’ “Life of Caligula”, which was revealed eighty years after his dying and is vulnerable to hyperbole, is the earliest biographical textual content we’ve got to work with. This kind of historic instability offers us the chance to form Caligula’s character in new methods.
Yuxuan: Growing up, I learnt about Caligula from a mix of historic information and fictional reinventions. And it was at all times fascinating to me how artists over time give themselves some artistic license when telling the story of Caligula. Even although our play is ready in a fictional and fantastical world, I feel it says one thing common and timeless about human nature. I hope the viewers will see a little bit of themselves and the world we reside in in the present day once they watch it.
We’ve talked to a load of creatives about their VAULT expertise and so they all point out big help from everybody at The Vaults. In your case, you have been chosen as one of many members in VAULT Five, how has that helped you?
I can’t think about being the place I’m proper now with out the help from the VAULT crew, the VAULT Five programme, and all VAULT Festival artists who I’ve met alongside the way in which. I’ve actually gained an perception into how issues work throughout a theatre competition like this and have been surrounded by extremely variety and proficient individuals, which has been so useful for an early-career artistic like me taking a present to a theatre competition for the primary time. I’ve additionally gotten help and assist from my VAULT Five mentor Oliver Hymans and he has been extremely variety and useful. He is a director and puppet designer who has been the proper mentor for this mission and helped me enhance as an artist a lot.
What are you able to inform us in regards to the puppetry and Noah Silverstone’s puppet design and creation?
In the story, Neptune, the god of the ocean, is a form-changing god who befriends Caligula. We wished Neptune to be an embodiment of the broader pure/oceanic world, so we didn’t need her to be restricted to 1 bodily type. Instead, she will flip into totally different sea creatures (in addition to a human) all through this journey with Caligula within the mortal world. And puppetry has been the proper medium to realize that.
Noah works quite a bit with recycled and sustainable supplies and the puppets for this present are constructed from nearly solely recycled supplies. It was unbelievable seeing the puppets turning from bits of cardboard and foam throughout the R&D to finely made and painted animal puppets as you will notice within the present. Noah’s puppet design and creation have a storybook and fantastical model, which isn’t solely actually entertaining to observe on stage but in addition will assist the viewers enter the world of a fantastical Rome that we’ve created the place gods and sea monsters exist.
What is in retailer subsequent for you and for Caligula and the Sea, do you’ve gotten extra plans after VAULT Festival?
I’m not solely certain but however basically I completely plan to take Caligula and the Sea additional to larger phases shifting on. I feel it’s a enjoyable, gripping, emotional, and, most significantly, entertaining present to observe. I’d like to share it with audiences across the UK and even the world sooner or later and I additionally suppose it has the potential for a much bigger ensemble if it was to be achieved once more!
Finally, do you’ve gotten any suggestions for different exhibits to take a look at at VAULT Festival?
So many unbelievable exhibits I need to watch this 12 months! To identify just a few: Dark Matter, Right of Way, Time, No I.D., SNAIL and The Yellow Traffic Light.
Our due to Yuxuan (and Jacey!) who took outing of the primary week of rehearsals to talk with us. Caligula and the Sea performs VAULT Festival 28 February to five March. Further info and tickets will be discovered right here.