Renata Portas directs ESAP students in performance for Teatro Nacional São João

In partnership with the Teatro Nacional São João, as part of the project As Escolas Artísticas no TNSJ (Artistic Schools at TNSJ), final-year Theatre students from ESAP present the show “Death is the Material with Which We Build Our Cities”.

This performance uses fragments from classic playwrights such as Georg Büchner, Heiner Müller, and William Shakespeare to address the potential and dangers of sudden political transformations.

Brecht

In truth, he lived in dark times.
The times have grown brighter.
The times have grown darker.
When light says, “I am darkness,”
 it speaks the truth.
When darkness says,
“I am light,” it does not lie.
 Heiner Müller

The living rubbing shoulders with the dead. Death and destruction broadcast on television during the intermission of zombie entertainment. The soaps Heiner Müller speaks of and the bodies without a trace in Palestine. How to address the ruins, the drive toward barbarism and revolution in a single performance? Constructed like a fractured mirror, the performance revisits the founding ideals of the French Revolution, the collapse of utopias, and the great ideological projects of the twentieth century.

A gallery that brings together the Marquis de Sade, Georg Büchner, Danton, Robespierre, Shakespeare, Pasolini, among others. A monster of a text. A mad rhapsody of dreams and nightmares with no end in sight.

Direction and dramaturgy: Renata Portas
Texts: Georg Büchner, Jean Anouilh, Pier Paolo Pasolini, William Shakespeare, documents from the French Revolution, among others.
Lighting design and set design support: Rui Quintas Azevedo
Sound design: Sofia Silva
Movement: Isabel Ariel
Actors: Guilherme Palha, José Valente, Mário da Silva, Renata Portas (voice-over)
Costumes: Júlia Leite
Photography: Val Kutepov
Production support: Público Reservado
Special thanks to: Eduarda Neves; Código Simbólico, António Hess, João Mendes, Jorge Palinhos, Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Extremadura, Paula Braga, Francisco Vaz.

https://www.tnsj.pt/pt/espetaculos/7240/a-morte-e-o-material-com-que-construimos-as-nossas-cidades/