Ask for Saramago “Don Giovanni or Absolved Dissolute” in English

A reading staged, with translation by Margaret Jull Costa and staging by Roxana Silbert, is part of the program of the 10th edition of the festival dedicated to the ibero-american dramaturgy, which takes place between July 14 and 18.

Based on Mozart’s opera “Don Giovanni”, Saramago’s play proposes a reinterpretation of the seductive myth, questioning the guilt and morality of the characters. 

Unlike the original version, in which the protagonist is convicted, the Portuguese author imagines an alternative outcome, suggesting his acquittal and exposing social hypocrisy.

The director, Roxana Silbert, highlighted how the current topics addressed made her interested in this project.

“ It is a play full of provocative questions about feminism, relations between men and women and social class, but also very fun, about young people in love and how this can be both cheerful and foolish”, he said, in statements to the agency Lusa.

The director stressed that the tone of the work requires a delicate balance, because “it is very comical, but also quite incisive”, so the cast plays an important role in the interpretation.

Although it is only a staged reading, in which the actors present themselves on stage with the scripts in hand and the scenario and props are limited, Silbert intends to highlight a text with a strong theatrical component.

“ You don't have to know the opera to understand the play. But who knows, recognizes all the characters, who are very faithful to the original ", said. 

José Saramago's text, one of the five plays he wrote, was first published in 2005, as a basis for the libretto of an opera by the Italian composer Azio Corghi, presented the following year at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, and at the Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos, in Lisbon, and had editions in Spanish and Italian.

The English translation was performed by Margaret Jull Costa, who decided to submit to the festival a work done several years ago at the request of Pilar del Río, widow of the writer and president of the José Saramago Foundation.

“ It seemed to me an opportunity, because, as far as I know, it was never published or represented in this language”, Lusa said.

The translator pointed out that Saramago's writing naturally adapts to the theater. 

“ He said he wanted his prose to sound like a spoken voice, and this feels in this text,” he said, adding that the piece “would also work very well as a radio piece”.

The Out of the Wings festival (OOTW) was born in 2008 as an academic project to present the dramaturgy of the Hispanic world to English-speaking audiences, explained founder Catherine Boyle.

“ We wanted to create a project that included translation, research and performance, designed for theater professionals,” Lusa said, referring that the initiative evolved in 2015 to also cover works in Portuguese.

Since then, the collective meets monthly to read new translations and organizes public presentations in staged reading format. 

“ We do not have funding for complete productions, so these readings are a first approach to texts, a moment of experimentation and sharing”, he explained.

According to this professor of Latin American Cultural Studies at King’s College London University, the festival plays an important role in a context in which the translated theatre faces difficulties in London. 

“ Theaters are cautious about new works because they are seen as a risk ", he said.

For the director Roxana Silbert, initiatives such as OOTW are essential to give visibility to international dramaturgies. 

“Hearing and seeing these texts, even in reading, helps to understand worlds and ways of telling stories that are often more inventive than what we are used to,” he said.

In 2020, he recalled, an adaptation of “Essay on Blindness” was presented in London, in which the public sat in the dark listening by headphones to the text played by an actress.

The unusual format, described by the press as a “sound installation”, gained prominence by being designed to respect the restrictions imposed by the covid-19 pandemic.

Silbert believes that the connection of this text by José Saramago to Mozart's opera can attract diverse audiences, because "the play dialogues with both theatre and opera viewers, which is unusual".

The play “Don Giovanni or the Absolvido Dissolute”, translated with the title “The Rake Absolved”, will be presented on July 18, at the Omnibus Theatre in Clapham, South London, ending the festival where texts from four other countries will be presented: Spain, Mexico, Chile and Uruguay.