Sopro
When the theatre is nothing but ruins, when nothing remains of the walls, the desks, the wings, the machines, the sets, someone will still remain: the lungs of the place but also of the dramatic gesture itself, the prompter. The voices, sounds, and music that usually take centre stage now take a step back and the breathing of the theatre itself, this thing no one hears, is for once at the forefront. The guardian of memory and continuity is a woman who has spent her whole life in this building where every day people have gathered and played. Tonight, she tells her stories, true or false, all the product of the theatre. She's in full view of the audience, onstage.
Tiago Rodrigues takes her and her endangered position out of her box, out of her “house”, and convinces her, who's never had more than the tips of her fingers on the stage, to come whisper a time gone by. Entering through her the soul and conscience of a unique place, he tries to understand how it breathes and adopts its rhythm. In one movement, the actors lend their voices to the whispers of the ghosts the prompter summons. We circle back to a before; before the text, before the voice, in a performance before the performance, when the theatre takes a deep breath.
Credits:
Text and direction: Tiago Rodrigues
With: Beatriz Maia, Cristina Vidal, Isabel Abreu, Marco Mendonça, Romeu Costa, Sara Barros Leitão
Original cast: Beatriz Brás, Cristina Vidal, Isabel Abreu, João Pedro Vaz, Sofia Dias, Vítor Roriz
Stage design and lights: Thomas Walgrave
Costumes: Aldina Jesus
Sound: Pedro Costa
Direction assistant: Catarina Rôlo Salgueiro
Light operation: Daniel Varela
Executive production: Rita Forjaz
Production: Teatro Nacional D. Maria II
Coproduction: ExtraPôle Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre de la Bastille, La Criée Théâtre national de Marseille, Le Parvis Scène nationale Tarbes Pyrénées, Festival Terres de Paroles Seine-Maritime – Normandie, Théâtre Garonne scène européenne, Teatro Viriato
Support: Onda
Recommended age: 12+
Duration: 1h45 (without intermission)
Show premiered at 7 July 2021, during the Festival d’Avignon (France)
Photo: © Christophe Raynaud de Lage – Festival d’Avignon
