Cristina Carvalhal debuts “Under Pressure” in the Trinity Theatre

A play “Under pressure” premieres on the 19th, in Lisbon, from Arthur Miller, staged by Cristina Carvalhal, who considers it ideal to talk about today, namely “war, racism, speed and savagery in which we live”.

In reading the play “Danger: Memory!”, written by Arthur Miller in 1986, Cristina Carvalhal seemed to be facing a text with “a structure and situations” similar to current themes, considering it “ideal to be able to talk about today, and the war and racism and the speed of the savagery in which we live”, said the director to the journalists, at the end of a rehearsal of the play, which opens in the Studio Room of the Theatre of the Trinity, in Lisbon, next Thursday.

“ It was something that was really bothering me. And Miller has this thing of very short dialogues, almost banal, can thus draw a very clear landscape through this wonderful resource”, he observed. He immediately wanted to follow this path, but, going further, he did not consider the text “so realistic”.

One thing the director was sure: she would work from Miller’s play, recreate it, “to talk about Portuguese reality”.

Hence, it is not surprising that the colonial war, even mentioning Mozambique, the traumas it left in those who fought it, the misery of the Portuguese people during the dictatorship, before the 25th of April 1974 (referring even the case of a miner who died inside the mine of Aljustrel), gave motto to some of the characters.

Divided into two parts, like Miller’s play, “Under Pressure” puts in the first part a man and a woman already old to remember moments past, in a text where memory is privileged.

Also like Miller's text, there is a woman's spectrum, Clara. Although it is not obvious to recognize who this character is – which also crosses memories of the father, recalling that “he spent the war singing” – in Miller’s text it allows the connection to the second part.

About Clara’s character, Cristina Carvalhal said she chose a “racialized” character to bring her to the present day, and to be able to give her own “contribut”. And she also chose to turn it into the “center of everything”, eventually telling the story, not limited to the role of victim – even though it appears almost always in counterlight, being only more visible in a longer speech.

In Cristina Carvalhal's version, the characters in the second part, although they follow Miller's line – a dead man and a cop – are different from the previous part, especially when, at one point, the narrator says: “Now let’s change history, leave the countryside, go to the city.” That's where the characters change.

Individual memory and collective memory are nuclear for the play that also integrates stories of the director and actress Cucha Carvalheiro, who is part of the cast.

“Under pressure” opens with “Under Pressure”, the song that became known in the voices of David Bowie and Freddy Mercury. The set is set on a desk, where a man sitting writes to his computer and talks to a woman who visits him. A cage without any bird is also visible on stage.

Asked by journalists about whether to “leave messages” with “Under Pressure”, Cristina Carvalhal vacilla and says not to know if they are messages.

“ I think that's a point of view. All artistic objects have a point of view,” he said, stressing that, in his case, “it has to be political”: having “something to do with the city, with others, with the way we live” and even with “the lack of freedom”.

Asked to justify the title chosen, the director referred not only to the musical theme that opens the play, which she likes very much, but also to the whole text that speaks of pressure in various ways: “The physical pressure, the pressure of physical failure, the lack of memory, the psychological pressure, in the case of the second part of the piece, but also the social, economic pressure and the pressure to feel barriers,” he concluded, highlighting immediately the “digital barrier” that today’s society imposes on older people, preventing them from accessing “basic services such as health, for example”.

On the scene until January 10, 2027, “Under pressure” has recitations from Wednesday to Sunday, at 19:00.

At the end of the session on December 13, there will be a conversation with the public.

Created and staged by Cristina Carvalhal, “Under pressure” is played by Ana Valentine, Cucha Carvalheiro and João Maria Pinto.

The scenography and costumes are by Ana Vaz, the drawing of light by Manuel Abrantes and Ana Carocinho.

“Under pressure” is a coproduction of the Trindade/INATEL Theatre and the Common Causes structure.