The play ‘Sopro’, starring Cristina Vidal, a point of the D. Maria II National Theater for more than 25 years, returns Friday to the Garrett room, in this theater of Lisbon, for ten more representations.
Started in July 2017, at the Avignon theater festival, ‘Sopro’, by Tiago Rodrigues, was later on an international tour.
‘Sopro’ is a play about theater, from the history and memories of Cristina Vidal, like the one about the first time she saw a play when she was five years old and was inside the box of the point, under the stage. At 21 she would make herself a point.
Winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Part / Show in 2018, ‘Sopro’ is a show with text and staging by Tiago Rodrigues, which will be performed by Beatriz Brás, Carla Bolito, Cristina Vidal, Isabel Abreu, Marco Mendonça and Romeu Coast.
The piece will be on the scene with English subtitles from Friday to January 17, and on the 18th and 19th will have subtitles in French.
On Sunday, there will be a session with interpretation in Portuguese sign language and audio description.
Tiago Rodrigues decided to make ‘Sopro’ when, after arriving at the artistic direction of D. Maria II in 2015, he was confronted with the existence of two professional points, the last in Portugal, he confided in March 2017.
For having worked in an independent company, I did not know what use to give them, but the presence of Cristina Vidal in the essays “has something of the strict solemnity of a samurai of the word and also of the wisdom of those who have worked with actors of all styles, ages and temperaments, “so that it quickly became” indispensable “for Tiago Rodrigues, the author observed at the time.
“With it, I learned that the point is not just this behind-the-scenes bureaucrat who forces the fidelity of the text, which remedies the flaws of memory or corrects the adulterations to the original. The point is an accomplice of the actors in their moments of perfection and, especially in those with imperfection, knows them, adapts to them, learns to breathe at the same pace as them. The point is also an advocate of the author and a director of the director, “he said.
The place of departure of ‘Breath’ is thus the image of a woman in the ruins of a theater, where she worked as a point throughout her life.
“What theater inhabits your imagination and your memory? What world can you give us to see, using only your invisible breath?” “What would happen if a theater collapsed, and in its rubble, we could only find one survivor: the point?” Here are some of the issues raised in the play.
“In the middle of the rubble, she ‘blows’ stories, some on stage and some in the backstage, some seem real and some fictional, we do not know what they are, she blows them up, with scenes from real life. “His memory does not distinguish them,” read a note from Nacional, about the presentation of the work.
‘Sopro’ is also a story of ‘stories of love, intrigue, work, politics, revenge, loneliness, friendship, and all passed in a theater’ and features scenography and light drawing by Thomas Walgrave and costumes by Aldina Jesus.
The play will be on stage at the Teatro Nacional São João, in Oporto, between June 12 and 22.
