Chapitô Company opens Thursday “Teaching about Lucidez”

“ ANDnsaio on Lucidez” was the text chosen for being “very interesting and very current”, by calling into question “a democracy that is extremely fragile”, added José Carlos Garcia.

Contrary to what the company usually does, which is to take an idea, develop it on stage and then, in the end, draw up the script, this time it was decided to “speak José Saramago’s book, page by page, and realize” how it would be possible “to tell this allegory that he does, this exercise of imagination, and then transport it to the stage”, the director explained.

The writer’s “feel of humor and irony” and his characters are also in the play, as “they are still real characters observed by him in his life,” said José Carlos Garcia.

“ ‘Teaching about Lucidez’ is exactly what happens on the day people decide for their own will, not for an organization, without talking to each other, flying almost all blanks’, which causes fear to settle in the government, leading to a democratic state “being able to reveal authoritarian impulses”, he stressed.

“ For this reason, the issue of a fragile democracy”, he emphasized.

In the 30 years of the company, the collective decided to “mount a spectacle through a book by José Saramago”. It made them “all the sense, 30 years later talking about this democracy that is sometimes, as they say, fragile, but also muscular”, José Carlos Garcia needed.

The director stresses that this is a super current text, which “makes perfect sense today, by the veiled signs that we can be in this path”, he warned.

Garcia refers to the path of “authoritarianism and false world democracy”, stating that the citizen “is often lost, without opportunity to interfere politically and try to change”.

“It’s as if we were powerless in the face of democratic institutions,” he stressed.

On the scene, “Essay on Lucidez” is guided by the minimalist scenario, with no scenographic mechanisms or special costumes, in harmony with the Company’s aesthetics, focusing on “all the actor’s body work to serve history”.

The play begins with a huge storm, with the delegates of section 14 of the vote very concerned with the absence of voters. It is only after the storm that voters arrive to vote, which leads the delegates and the president of the table to be extremely happy until the moment of the ballot that they realize that most of the population voted blank.

From here on, the escalation begins: the government reschedules elections, of which 83% are blank votes, giving the starting shot to a climate of fear and violence that the government will set up in the face of a people who were not even angry but only lucid.

“What if the greatest danger for a government is not a revolted people, but a lucid people?” is the question left by the play that will be on the scene until October 25, in the Chapitô, with sessions from Thursday to Saturday, at 9:00 p.m., and on Sunday, at 5:00 p.m.

The play is a collective creation and has interpretation of Jorge Cruz, Pedro da Silva, Susana Nunes and Tiago Viegas.

In production and staging assistance is Leandro Araújo.