Devin Ramirez as Charles, Guinevere Govea as ( ), and Carlie Schoultz, Kialond Bronson-Smith, and Nick Salvidar in the Movement Ensemble. Photo by Lawrence Peart.

Juleeanne Villareal as Louisa Vansant and Christian Scheller as Charles Vansant. Photo by Lawrence Peart.

Cat Palacios as Lester and Guinever Govea as ( ). Photo by Lawrence Peart.

Sahil Bhutani as Robert Engle. Photo by Lawrence Peart.

Brooks Laney as Stanley Fisher and Kyle Cordova as George Burlew. Photo by Lawrence Peart.

Matawan

by Dan Caffrey
Directed by Lane Michael stanley
Texas Performing Arts | October 10-21, 2018

In the summer of 1916, a series of fatal shark attacks terrorized the New Jersey Shore. Further inland, a polio epidemic plagued Philadelphia, while the cloud of World War I loomed over the Nation. As the forces of nature, disease and war close in, characters who struggle to change must face a creature whose evolution has led to millions of years of survival. Spanning several cities, the infinite depths of the ocean and the point of view of the shark herself, Matawan examines how our internal anxieties are often just as terrifying as our national catastrophes.

In our process, we constantly followed the question: Can we create a shark that the audience wants to be eaten by? We sought to show the ocean as a place of freedom from the fears and anxieties that plague humans above ground.

Praise for Matawan

“As an exploration of the ways in which we can see deeper truths about mankind through the evocative story of an aquatic killer… this production truly has bite.”
-Austin 360