The second day of the Almada Festival, the 5th, starts at 5 pm at Salão das Carochas, in Almada Velha.
It is the inauguration of the first of two exhibitions by Noé Sendas, the visual artist, and author of this year’s Festival poster: Volume 2: Vertical Sea. Later, at 7 pm, at the TMJB Gallery, the second exhibition opens Volume 1: Staged Bodies.
Meanwhile, at 6 pm, on the Esplanade of the D. António da Costa School, we have the first Colloquium on the Esplanade with Ramon Fontserè, director of İQue Salga Aristófanes!, moderated by José Alves Mendes. At 8 pm, on the Esplanade Stage, there is Music on the Esplanade: Martín Sued and Gabriel Selvage, who with an Argentine bandonion and a Brazilian viola will liven up dinner at the Festival. Entry is free.
At 9.30 pm, two shows at the TMJB: Sweden, by Pedro Mexia, staged by Nuno Cardoso, for Teatro Nacional de S. João, in the Main Room; and the premiere of Calvário, with text and staging by Rodrigo Francisco, for Companhia de Teatro de Almada, at Sala Experimental. An evening dedicated to Portuguese dramaturgy.
A public theater is staging the most famous play by Thomas Bernhard – Minetti –, but the actor hired for the role of the protagonist was not a first choice, nor the second, nor the third. It turns out that the mythomania and pesporrence of this actor, an ‘old trout’, make him a kind of double of Minetti, the Shakespearean interpreter created by Bernhard, who waits in vain in the lobby of a hotel in Ostend for the director of a theater who promised him nothing less than the role of Lear. As it happens, the director of this Minetti doesn’t seem to have much interest in the play; the rest of the actors in the cast are not satisfied with the roles they were given; the old actor’s personal assistant staunchly defends his “Master”; the staging assistant is indignant with the “toxicity” of certain excerpts from the text; and a sign language interpreter watches, perplexed, as what threatens to become a major collective shipwreck. Or in an ‘ordeal’, rather, which is how old actors called the lines they repeatedly forgot in rehearsals – and beyond.
Rodrigo Francisco is a playwright, director, and artistic director of Companhia de Teatro de Almada and Festival de Almada. He did his theatrical training with Joaquim Benite, for whom he was a staging assistant. He has directed several plays for CTA, the most recent of which is A Guy is never the same thing, which he also wrote, and Beyond Pain, by Alexander Zeldin.
Calvário (Experimental Room at Teatro Municipal Joaquim Benite, 5th, 7th, 11th and 15th at 9:30 pm and 8th and 16th at 7:00 pm)
- Text and Staging: Rodrigo Francisco
- Interpretation: Carlos Pereira, João Cabral, João Farraia, Luís Vicente, Pedro Walter, Teresa Mónica and Maria Velez Araújo (ESTC Intern)
- Scenography: Céline Demars
- Costume Design: Ana Paula Rocha
- Light: Guilherme Frazão
- Portuguese language
- Duration: 1h30m
- Rating: M/12
- Price: 13€
More information at ctalmada.pt
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