Interview

Interpreter of 12 Efeitos de Luz [12 Light Effects], on stage between January 12th and 23rd in the Pequeno Auditório of Teatro Rivoli

This piece was created in reverse: some texts by Ricardo [Alves] led to photographs by Júlio Eme, which, in turn, served as the basis for the construction of the songs by Manel Cruz, Elísio Donas, Kinorm, Peixe and Nuno Prata. Only later, Ricardo finished the original text of the performance. How was this creation by blocks?

Ivo Bastos (IB): Since the first creations of the Palmilha, the text has never been paramount. Sometimes it's the center of the piece, sometimes not. I remember that the first piece we did—“Piratas do fio de agua”—started with the set design. First we built a pirate ship and then we said, "Okay, we have to make a piece in here." Now, we also start with this pretext. Ricardo thought of making a performance that would be based on 12 light effects and that then everything would be built on top of that. The photography appears in a playful way, where we photographed the actor, in this case, me in each light effect, and then we follow each explanation of the effect on social media. This also served to send this material to the five musicians we invited: Manel Cruz, Kinorm, Nuno Prata, Elísio Dornas and Peixe. Each one made their own music, therefore, there are no Ornatos Violeta in this show (laughs). In this way, they also had an enumeration and description of each light effect, thus being able to build a theme for their respective effect. The songs were arriving, without us knowing which of the effects it was related to. When each of the songs arrived, Ricardo would write whatever came to him. Then it was all mixed up and given again. That is, through the texts that Ricardo was writing, we adapted them to each of the songs.
The show itself takes place inside the protagonist's head. And we, in our heads, don't have everything organized: we have spaces of memories that are yet to come, things that have already happened, we have good and bad memories, we have things that we keep hiding on the last shelves, we have others that we leave very proudly on the central shelf and the show is also a bit like that.

You said that the piece takes place in the head of the protagonist. How does the narrative develop?

IB: The play takes place inside the protagonist's head, but in the background he is sitting on the garden bench, absorbed in his thoughts, and next to him is an old man giving rice to the pigeons. This man who is sitting next to the protagonist allows us to introduce external inputs, whether from completely random, political things (etc), or from the protagonist's own life—given that they cross paths there in that park. This is not a voice over, Rui Oliveira is “back there” so that the show can be “alive”. So, in case something happens, it's not a play that happens, he's there and can sustain the scene. Thus, the scenes during the show can also grow. This is not a pure comedy, it is still a comedy... and the comedies with the public are growing. The first big rehearsal is always the premiere.

This work started some years ago. And now it finally opens...

IB: Yes, we started working on this piece about six years ago. At the time, the text didn't go very well (laughs). Very close to the premiere we only had around two pages of text, so we decided to leave. And it's a good thing, because things must happen in their own time and this one, six years later, has the music upgrade, which is great. Furthermore, we are here for Rivoli's 90th anniversary. At the time we would have been 84, which is not so funny...