Interview
Renata Portas
June
2021
Tue
29
Director of Dramatículos de Samuel Beckett, presented on July 8, 9 and 10, at Teatro Rivoli.
Is this play an adaptation, an inspiration, a confrontation, or simply a reenactment of Samuel Beckett's dramas? Any or none of this?
It's others. It's a dialogue. Beckett is a very special author...that phrase we always say at every stage. Acting is a very difficult art. Beckett was not only a great playwright, he was a great director. He was an absolutely brilliant man in the way he worked the theatrical material, time, language, silences, etc. So, when I started thinking about doing Beckett, when I proposed him to Rivoli about three years ago, I thought: “I won't change anything” – not least because with Beckett there is always this question of what changes, what doesn't change. Anyway, copyrights aside, there is a whole point of view that tells us that we should not change, precisely because of the fairness of things, not only of the text but of the staging and musicality it proposes. I remember commenting to one of the actors, who asked me last year: “How is it going to be? What are you going to do?”. To which I replied that I would fulfill what is there and that it would be an exercise in humility. It is and it is not. It's an exercise in humility because I realized that I really had to do some things, almost all, that had to do with timing and rhythm, to understand that he had tested all the other hypotheses. When we went to another hypothesis, we realized that he had already tested it and that his was better. It is, therefore, an exercise in humility, in the sense that you withdraw from this author. And then there's an exercise in confrontation, but it's a completely loving confrontation because I'm absolutely in love with him, it's not a provocation of genius. There are invented scenes and there are changes, for example in Not I. Beckett being the director and playwright that he was, of an absolutely unsurpassed radicalism, and I say this because his most contemporary play is called Breath, which is basically a lot of garbage to breathe for 25 seconds to 1 minute. And with that, I say that I don't know of any work of contemporary art that is as radical as this one, his last work. So, thinking about all of Beckett's work, I decided that I would have to do some drifts, I would have to miss some points and try some things. So, it turns out to be a mix of love letters and teasing.
Taking Rockaby as an example, this text explores the nature of aging in contemporary society, represents the quality of life issues for the frail and lonely elderly in communities and health institutions. Basically, how the elderly prepare for the end of life in a culture that denies death. Does this work tell us how we should not grow old?
Beckett liked old people and he understood one thing: we are all old, all of us. There are cells of ours dying right now and, of course, being 5, 50, or 85 are different things. But Beckett not only recognized that, whenever we breathe, we walk towards death, he also realized that a kind of small joy is possible in the half-ruin of life.
Beckett picks up objects as banal and every day as a rocking chair, picks up a window; there are neighbors, eyes... but at the same time this is an inner monologue, it's about getting older, as it always is. I don't know if it's to teach us, as I have some nihilist affinities in this, but in the midst of this absolute pessimism, it's possible to whistle better, speak better, see better. Currently, the great taboo in our society is death. We are living in a pandemic and there is a kind of pandemonium accompanying the reaction to the pandemic because there is so much that we let ourselves know how to deal with the fact that we are getting old. People all want to be absolutely new, in a much cheesier way than in Greece [laughs] and maybe this situation we're in right now serves just to remind us that we're all dead matter.
Taking the notion of time as the central point, why did you decide to explore this theme and how do you work with an object as abstract and intangible as this one?
There are three things in this performance and in most of my performances: time, language, and death/memory. All are more or less the same thing. Every time I say “time” I annihilate the thing I'm talking about. Talking is postponing time, remembering is trying to make up for time and, in the midst of all this, it is possible to work on it. For me, the theatre is the most privileged place to work on the issue of time and space, which may or may not walk together. Therefore, the time in this performance meets these notions.
How do I work and cross a more apocalyptic thought with Beckett's nominations that are from the '60s, '70s? After all, this is not what is called contemporary today, but I am interested in universal questions and I am interested in questions that I do not know how to answer. I can't even say very well what I consider time, other than that it's a kind of patchwork memory I try to walk on.
What can we expect from the scenography, light, sound, and characterization of these Dramaticles? How do these elements feed the text and staging?
Let me talk a little about the team. It is a large and very collaborative team that was formed. Some were already in the project, others were being recommended, others were joining, others were giving up, etc. It was a process of almost eight months with a lot of bumps in the way, but the team that is there is absolutely fantastic, some of the members with technical opinions, but the team is all artistic. The scenography is by Sérgio Leitão, an absolute debut by a plastic artist from Cascais, who has been living in Porto for some years now. The scenography – of fracture, ruin, of the exposition of Beckett's own vision and disposition – is born from Sérgio's reading. The music is from St. James Park, which ironically opens spaces of silence and manages to change the quality of time. We have Diogo Mendes, who is now starting to do his own work, who is already a regular collaborator and is not "just" a light designer, he is someone who has a unique thought on the subject and who dialogues with me in order to create a unity In terms of characterization, there are indications by Ruby Kruss for Play, one of the pieces, which takes place in contemporary urns, there is also Diogo Machado, who makes two scenic and filmed objects, and his collaboration with Edgar Pera, who helped him with the editing, among many others, Jordann Santos, who has worked with me for a long time on the costumes.
I will be a megalomaniac, of course, I hope that what is seen on stage is my artistic thinking, but it is my artistic thinking in dialogue with the rest of the team, with everyone who participates. They are a series of artists, each in their own way, trying to create a cohesive performance.
In short, this performance covers five Beckett dramas: Ohio Impromptu, Rockaby, Play, Not I, Footfalls. These are five very brief pieces about the human condition and the idea of ruin. A collaborative performance, developed with a lot of people and is an absolute premiere.
Interview conducted on June 25, 2021, by Pedro Sousa (TMP’s communication office).
Is this play an adaptation, an inspiration, a confrontation, or simply a reenactment of Samuel Beckett's dramas? Any or none of this?
It's others. It's a dialogue. Beckett is a very special author...that phrase we always say at every stage. Acting is a very difficult art. Beckett was not only a great playwright, he was a great director. He was an absolutely brilliant man in the way he worked the theatrical material, time, language, silences, etc. So, when I started thinking about doing Beckett, when I proposed him to Rivoli about three years ago, I thought: “I won't change anything” – not least because with Beckett there is always this question of what changes, what doesn't change. Anyway, copyrights aside, there is a whole point of view that tells us that we should not change, precisely because of the fairness of things, not only of the text but of the staging and musicality it proposes. I remember commenting to one of the actors, who asked me last year: “How is it going to be? What are you going to do?”. To which I replied that I would fulfill what is there and that it would be an exercise in humility. It is and it is not. It's an exercise in humility because I realized that I really had to do some things, almost all, that had to do with timing and rhythm, to understand that he had tested all the other hypotheses. When we went to another hypothesis, we realized that he had already tested it and that his was better. It is, therefore, an exercise in humility, in the sense that you withdraw from this author. And then there's an exercise in confrontation, but it's a completely loving confrontation because I'm absolutely in love with him, it's not a provocation of genius. There are invented scenes and there are changes, for example in Not I. Beckett being the director and playwright that he was, of an absolutely unsurpassed radicalism, and I say this because his most contemporary play is called Breath, which is basically a lot of garbage to breathe for 25 seconds to 1 minute. And with that, I say that I don't know of any work of contemporary art that is as radical as this one, his last work. So, thinking about all of Beckett's work, I decided that I would have to do some drifts, I would have to miss some points and try some things. So, it turns out to be a mix of love letters and teasing.
Taking Rockaby as an example, this text explores the nature of aging in contemporary society, represents the quality of life issues for the frail and lonely elderly in communities and health institutions. Basically, how the elderly prepare for the end of life in a culture that denies death. Does this work tell us how we should not grow old?
Beckett liked old people and he understood one thing: we are all old, all of us. There are cells of ours dying right now and, of course, being 5, 50, or 85 are different things. But Beckett not only recognized that, whenever we breathe, we walk towards death, he also realized that a kind of small joy is possible in the half-ruin of life.
Beckett picks up objects as banal and every day as a rocking chair, picks up a window; there are neighbors, eyes... but at the same time this is an inner monologue, it's about getting older, as it always is. I don't know if it's to teach us, as I have some nihilist affinities in this, but in the midst of this absolute pessimism, it's possible to whistle better, speak better, see better. Currently, the great taboo in our society is death. We are living in a pandemic and there is a kind of pandemonium accompanying the reaction to the pandemic because there is so much that we let ourselves know how to deal with the fact that we are getting old. People all want to be absolutely new, in a much cheesier way than in Greece [laughs] and maybe this situation we're in right now serves just to remind us that we're all dead matter.
Taking the notion of time as the central point, why did you decide to explore this theme and how do you work with an object as abstract and intangible as this one?
There are three things in this performance and in most of my performances: time, language, and death/memory. All are more or less the same thing. Every time I say “time” I annihilate the thing I'm talking about. Talking is postponing time, remembering is trying to make up for time and, in the midst of all this, it is possible to work on it. For me, the theatre is the most privileged place to work on the issue of time and space, which may or may not walk together. Therefore, the time in this performance meets these notions.
How do I work and cross a more apocalyptic thought with Beckett's nominations that are from the '60s, '70s? After all, this is not what is called contemporary today, but I am interested in universal questions and I am interested in questions that I do not know how to answer. I can't even say very well what I consider time, other than that it's a kind of patchwork memory I try to walk on.
What can we expect from the scenography, light, sound, and characterization of these Dramaticles? How do these elements feed the text and staging?
Let me talk a little about the team. It is a large and very collaborative team that was formed. Some were already in the project, others were being recommended, others were joining, others were giving up, etc. It was a process of almost eight months with a lot of bumps in the way, but the team that is there is absolutely fantastic, some of the members with technical opinions, but the team is all artistic. The scenography is by Sérgio Leitão, an absolute debut by a plastic artist from Cascais, who has been living in Porto for some years now. The scenography – of fracture, ruin, of the exposition of Beckett's own vision and disposition – is born from Sérgio's reading. The music is from St. James Park, which ironically opens spaces of silence and manages to change the quality of time. We have Diogo Mendes, who is now starting to do his own work, who is already a regular collaborator and is not "just" a light designer, he is someone who has a unique thought on the subject and who dialogues with me in order to create a unity In terms of characterization, there are indications by Ruby Kruss for Play, one of the pieces, which takes place in contemporary urns, there is also Diogo Machado, who makes two scenic and filmed objects, and his collaboration with Edgar Pera, who helped him with the editing, among many others, Jordann Santos, who has worked with me for a long time on the costumes.
I will be a megalomaniac, of course, I hope that what is seen on stage is my artistic thinking, but it is my artistic thinking in dialogue with the rest of the team, with everyone who participates. They are a series of artists, each in their own way, trying to create a cohesive performance.
In short, this performance covers five Beckett dramas: Ohio Impromptu, Rockaby, Play, Not I, Footfalls. These are five very brief pieces about the human condition and the idea of ruin. A collaborative performance, developed with a lot of people and is an absolute premiere.
Interview conducted on June 25, 2021, by Pedro Sousa (TMP’s communication office).
© José Caldeira / TMP
