The Comuna premieres work of Tennessee Williams adapting Tchekhov
A tribute to the theater is how the director Joao Mota classifies’ The notes of Trigorin ‘, Tennessee Williams’ piece on Chekhov, that the Comuna premieres on the 25th, to celebrate the 47 years that it completes in May 2019.
Without ever staging a play by the Russian playwright Anton Tchekhov (1860-1904), which he likes very much, John Mota now returns to the play by Tennessee Williams, this time with an adaptation of ‘The Gull’, after, in 1990, to have staged the author of ‘An electric called desire’, still with Manuela de Freitas in the cast of the Commune.
“I really like Tchekhov, and the Commune is going to be 47. I did not do Chekhov at the time [1990], I thought I’d do it because Manuela de Freitas was here.” Chekhov is an author I love very much, but I’ve always had fear of not having actors to do it, “confessed Joao Mota, on the sidelines of a press essay of ‘The Trigorin notes’.
After reading the adaptation of Tennessee William (1911-1983) of “The Seagull,” in a translation provided to him by playwright Armando Nascimento Rosa about five years ago, João Mota said he found “very interesting” the junction of ” Impressionism with Expressionism “, patents in this play.
“Because Chekhov is a practically realistic author of impressionism, and Tennessee Williams is more expressionist within realism,” he said.
The “poetic side” of the two playwrights, the “side of the dream” and “the side of the interior”, the “underground side of the characters” is, however, the facet of the two authors that most fascinates Joao Mota and that made him return now to the American playwright, even without Manuela de Freitas to direct.
Although she invited the actress to return to the stage and she refused, she told, João Mota decided to stage ‘The Notes of Trigorin’, at a ‘time that remains difficult for the theater’ even though the to carry out the much-desired and necessary works “in the building, he added.
‘Trigorin’s notes’ revolve around the story of Constantine, a young, sensitive writer whose pursuit of love, art and acceptance is greater than life itself.
The dramatic plot focuses on Constantine and the debut of her new play opposite friends, family and Nina, the young actress for whom she has deep feelings.
Madame Arakadina, mother of Constantine and famous actress, is another of the main personages of this piece. A woman and a domineering mother, she tells everyone that she loathes her son’s work, making him feel more and more embittered by life and art, but without letting her love Nina.
However, Nina only has eyes for the writer Trigorin, companion of Arakadina, but more and more desired by Nina, which causes that Constantine is dominated by the rage and the jealousy.
A piece that lives very much around the “masks” that hide behind each human being, by the secret side of the personalities that not always allow themselves to be glimpsed.
Hence it was also the pleasure of the “silences, the looks, the simultaneous scenes and the subterranean and subliminal side of the characters” that charmed Joao Mota.
“The side of the hiding-place and of exchanged loves,” as they are called by Joao Mota, and who have now brought him to the scene – an adventure that is not easy in “hard times like those who continue to live,” said João Mota, especially since the play features a cast of 11 actors.
Another aspect that impressed Joao Mota in this adaptation of Chekhov’s classic was the “side of modernity” that Tenneesse Williams wanted to give to the work of the Russian playwright.
For the creator of ‘The Night of the Iguana’, the play took years to write. The American playwright often changed it by pretending to make Chekhov “in a new way,” he said.
In a classic setting, where the furniture of style and some strong colors, extending to the costumes, dominate, Bárbara Blanco, Carlos Paulo, Carlos Vieira de Almeida, Custódia Gallego, Guilherme Filipe, Hugo Franco, Igor Sampaio, Luís Garcia, Madalena Brandão, Miguel Sermão and Teresa Côrte-Real fill the cast of the play, which has costumes by Carlos Paulo and stage version and staging by João Mota.
‘Trigorin’s notes’ will be on stage from the 25th to the 16th of December, with performances from Wednesday to Saturday at 9:30 p.m., and on Sundays at 4 p.m.
