A The information was provided to the Lusa agency by Companhia de Teatro de Almada (CTA), which today marks World Theater Day with the announcement of the three international shows already guaranteed for the 40th edition of the Festival that it organises, taking place in Almada and Lisbon , from the 4th to the 18th of July, and the offer of tickets for the show to be held tonight, in the main room of the Teatro Joaquim Benite.
The Batsheva Dance Company, from Israel, with its new creation, ‘Momo’, a warning against the growth of the extreme right, and the National Classical Theater Company of Spain, with ‘Life is a dream’, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, by the British artist Declan Donnellan, are the other two confirmations advanced by CTA, among the 12 international and eight national creations that will make up the 40th edition of the Festival de Almada.
‘The anniversary’ which arrives in Portugal, directed by the German director Peter Stein, is an Italian co-production, by Tieffe theaters in Milan and Nacional Stabile in Veneto, premiered in the autumn of last year, which features actress Maddalena Crippa, as the protagonist .
Written in 1957, when Pinter was 27 years old, the work is defined as one of the “threat comedies” by the British author, Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, standing between the comic and the tragic, CTA told Lusa.
“We have yet to hear much about this author and this text”, wrote Harold Hobson, a critic for The Sunday Times, the day after the world premiere of Harold Pinter’s play, which took place in Cambridge, in 1958.
“We are never sure whether the characters are telling us the truth, or are simply lying: the spectators are kept in a state of continuous uncertainty”, writes the German director Peter Stein, the dean of theater and opera directors, who established the company Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz, based in the theater in the Wilmersdorf district of Berlin, which became the vanguard of German theatre.
The 40th edition of the Almada Festival will bring together “some of the most distinguished national and international creators and companies”, in 20 theater, dance and new circus shows, to be presented on nine stages in Almada, such as the Joaquim Benite Municipal Theater, the D. António da Costa, Forum Romeu Correia, Incrível Almadense and Academia Almadense, and in Lisbon, at the Centro Cultural de Belém (CCB), according to the CTA presentation sheet.
The ‘theater of the word’, anchored in literature, is represented this year by a group of directors who have dedicated themselves to staging seminal pieces of universal dramaturgy”, including Peter Stein, who in 2013 had already taken to the Festival ‘The Last recording of Krapp’, by Samuel Beckett, starring Klaus Maria Brandauer, and ‘The Martin prize’, by Labiche, adds information from CTA, which has artistic direction by Rodrigo Francisco.
‘Homecoming’, by Harold Pinter, (2015) staged by Peter Stein for Teatro Metastasio Stabile della Toscana in Italy, was another of the shows with which the German director has already been present at the event.
Guaranteed in the 40th edition of the Festival is also the Israeli Batsheva Dance Company that will perform on the 13th and 14th of July, at the CCB, with its new creation, ‘Momo’, with choreography by Ohad Naharin, in collaboration with Ariel Cohen . The soundtrack is based on the album ‘Landfall’, which Laurie Anderson recorded with the Kronos Quartet.
According to the CTA, which quotes the Israeli daily Haaretz, ‘Momo’, “despite the constant irony, consists of a resounding warning against the growth of the extreme right”, implying that “the faith that Naharin had in the capacity of people to take a position seems to have given way to a certain despair”.
As for ‘Life is Dream’, by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, by Companhia Nacional de Teatro Clássico brings to Portugal, it is directed by director Declan Donnellan, with scenography by Nick Ormerod, the duo that founded the company Cheek by Jowl, in 1981 , based in London.
The British stage director, director and set designer Declan Donnellan also returns to the Portuguese festival where, in 2014, he was present with ‘Rei Ubu’, by Alfred Jarry.
The next edition’s program also highlights the three performances of the monologue ‘I am my own wife’, by Doug Wright, a production by Teatro Experimental de Cascais, staged by Carlos Avilez, starring Marco D’Almeida, “a spectacle of honour” voted by the public in last year’s edition to return this year.
‘I am my own woman’ will be represented on the 7th, 9th and 11th of July, at the Romeu Correia Municipal Forum, in Almada.
Winner of awards, including a Pulitzer and a Tony Award, the text ‘I am my own woman’ tells the biography of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who lived under the Nazi regime and, after the end of the second world conflict, in the eastern part of Berlin in the then German Democratic Republic.
The play presents us with a real character who unveils his “museum-antiquary” in whose basement he clandestinely held shows for the gay community of Berlin.
The complete program of the 40th Festival de Almada will be announced on June 16, at 9 pm, at Casa da Cerca, CTA told Lusa.
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