{"id":800,"date":"2018-12-10T22:45:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T22:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/18\/?p=800"},"modified":"2022-02-06T20:52:35","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T20:52:35","slug":"almadas-theatre-fiesta-a-public-affair-or-an-affair-with-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/18\/almadas-theatre-fiesta-a-public-affair-or-an-affair-with-the-public\/","title":{"rendered":"Almada\u2019s Theatre Fiesta: A Public Affair or an Affair with the Public"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Katerina Delikonstantinidou<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

35th<\/sup> Festival of Almada, Almada and Lisbon, Portugal, 4-18 July, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The official poster of the festival\u2019s 35th<\/sup> edition<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The artistic director of the Festival de Almada, Rodrigo Francisco<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Almada is said to be the national theatre capital of Portugal, at least for the duration of its theatre festival. This is the first piece of information I received upon arriving at the small, yet remarkably vibrant, city, snuggling between Tagus River and the Atlantic Ocean and greeting Lisbon\u2019s majestic bearing across the 25 de Abril Bridge with low-key dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second thing I learned about Portugal\u2019s theatre and performing arts hub is that the Festival of Almada is primarily, consistently, and quite explicitly oriented toward the public. The festival\u2019s success can be traced to the fact that, in the 35 years of its existence, it has grown to become part of civic as well as poetic engagement with the society through whose fabric it steadfastly weaves itself, always in keeping with the decidedly democratizing vision and mission of the late Joaquim Benite, the festival\u2019s first artistic director (also director of Companhia de Teatro de Almada).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The festival\u2019s current artistic director, Rodrigo Fransisco, recently interviewed in Critical Stages<\/em> by Savas Patsalidis<\/a>, did an amazing job with the program of the latest edition, which features four premieres and a variety of artistic events, such as concerts, exhibitions, and street shows, accompanying more than twenty theatre spectacles making up the festival\u2019s backbone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christian Martins and Rafael Fonseca in Col\u00f3nia Penal<\/em>. Teatro do Bairro, Lisbon, Portugal, 2018. Photo: Maria Antunes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To offer an illustrative sample of the festival\u2019s 35th edition, I begin with Col\u00f3nia Penal<\/em>, a playwhich handles with sensitivity\u2014thematically and dramaturgically\u2014the material it reconfigures; namely, Jean Genet\u2019s Le Bagne,<\/em> or Penal Colony <\/em>(developed between 1949 and 1964, and drawing from his own experience as a prisoner).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jo\u00e3o Barbosa, Lu\u00eds Lima Barreto and Hugo Mestre Amaro in Col\u00f3nia Penal<\/em>, Teatro do Bairro, Lisbon, Portugal, 2018.
Photo: Maria Antunes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The piece\u2019s director, Ant\u00f3nio Pires, translators F\u00e1tima Ferreira and Lu\u00eds Lima Barreto, and, of course, Col\u00f3nia Penal<\/em>\u2019s ensemble of actors, have elicited from the unfinished and fragmented text of Genet a peculiar kind of poetry, dark and resonant in its affirmation of human existence via negativa<\/em>; that is, by celebrating death as the proverbial grand equalizer. The play infuses profound meaning to the idea of crime as a means of transcending mundane and trivial human life, as well as to the idea of prison as a sort of waiting room before gaining admission to liberating, idealized death. Imprisonment, exile , isolation, violence, oppression, all the suffering and hopelessness, all the conflicts and contradictions entailed therein, are but ancillaries to the great and necessary journey toward this sacred destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jo\u00e3o Maria in Col\u00f3nia Penal<\/em>. Teatro do Bairro, Lisbon, Portugal, 2018. Photo: Maria Antunes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The way Pires has re-arranged the \u201cframed pictures\u201d bequeathed by Genet\u2019s decidedly inconclusive and non-narrative text, creating a modular choreography of tableaus, allows for the gradual and suspenseful revelation of the text\u2019s philosophical nuances, but also captures something of the dadaist spirit infusing Genet\u2019s work. The effect of the piece\u2019s structure is heightened by the way Rui Seabra has immersed and transversed these tableaus in and by zones of desert-like light and tomb-like shadow, thus further foregrounding the desolation of the limbo-like prison state in which the characters find themselves, as well as the promise that death makes to them, one always tainted with uncertainly. The toned-down yet powerful performances and the cinematographic elements which the play\u2019s staging ingeniously integrates, and which pay tribute to Genet\u2019s reworking of his piece for the big screen in the early 1950s, round out the piece very effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Several humorous instances interspersed throughout Dr. Nest<\/em> blend harmoniously with an acute feeling of sadness permeating the play. Escola D. Ant\u00f3nio Da Costa, Palco Grande, Almada, 2018. Photo: Valeria Tomasulo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The German Dr. Nest<\/em>, the latest achievement of Familie Fl\u00f6z, won the hearts of the festival\u2019s audience and thus scooped up the festival\u2019s 2018 Audience Award. The ensemble is known for their unique pieces, their brilliant experimentations with masks\u2014at once bizarre and beautiful\u2014and the way they manage to bring to life captivating stories without verbal communication or grandiose scenery, but by braiding together tragic and comedic strands by means of their own physical presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Dr. Nest<\/em>, the titular \u201cDoctor\u201d becomes the patient. Escola D. Ant\u00f3nio Da Costa, Palco Grande, Almada, 2018.
Photo: Valeria Tomasulo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In Dr. Nest<\/em>, they set out to tell the story of a mysterious man who arrives at a secluded sanatorium and takes a position among the establishment\u2019s staff of care workers as Dr. Nest. Apparently motivated by genuine care, scientific curiosity and desire for insights into the workings of the human psyche, Dr. Nest helps the residents cope with the enigmas of the mind and the soul. Soon, however, his touching empathy towards his \u201cpatients\u201d shows to have its source not in his personal and professional ethics, but in his intimate knowledge of the obsessive desires, distorted\/ing memories and haunting fantasies plaguing them. Unable to keep his own compulsions, delusions and demons at bay, he finds solace in the company of the lonely, the alienated, the persecuted\u2014those like him. In the short duration of his appointment, however, he does lend comfort and joy to the lives of others, while, at the same time, his adventures testify to how rewarding life can be not despite of but in its very fragility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The play\u2019s captivating depiction of the solitude of the human mind won over the festival\u2019s audience. Escola D. Ant\u00f3nio Da Costa, Palco Grande, Almada, 2018. Photo: Valeria Tomasulo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Video 1<\/h6>\n\n\n\n