The Black Box at Teatro Municipal de Portimão is a real black box from which charms come out. On Saturday, the 17th, at 16 pm, the fifth and, for now, final performance will take place, this time for families, of the puppet play «Uma Noite», conceived and performed by three local artists, all of them teachers.
They are Fátima Mártires, Carla Travessa and Carla Paixão, the first and last EVT teachers, the other Music teacher. They conceived the story that takes the stage, built the puppets, created the scenography, and even embody the manipulation of the puppets. For this they also had the help of a fourth Portuguese teacher, Sandrina Branco, who collaborated in the research and dramaturgy.
And what do they present then? The play for puppets "Uma Noite" is an original creation, based on the classic stories of "A Thousand and One Nights". «What we tell here are not the stories themselves, because they are many and long, and this show is aimed at pre-school children, between 3 and 6 years old. It cannot take more than half an hour, otherwise the children will get tired», explains Fátima Mártires.
«What we tell are elements of several stories, which the kids, for the most part, already know, such as Aladino, the Lamp and the Genius, Ali Babá and the 40 Thieves and, of course, Xerazade, who tells the stories» , he adds.
A adventure These artists from Portimão began when, in June of last year, they presented the opera «O Zé das Moscas» on the stage of the Municipal Theater of Portimão (Tempo), within the scope of the Dramatic Expression Workshop, which involved dozens of students from their own school. school, the EB 2,3 D. Martinho Castelo Branco, singing, acting or playing the instruments. It was a success and at the time the Oficina do Espetador do Tempo invited them to present a new work, based on the «One Thousand and One Nights» and this time designed on purpose for the Black Box, the most intimate space in the theatre, and thinking in younger children, from 3 to 6 years.
“Our work for this puppet piece started right then. We started to bring the ideas out here, researching what kids, especially the little ones, know about One Thousand and One Nights», recalls Fátima Mártires.
How many hours of work did it take to design and embody this show? “Wow… we don't even know. Between idealization, construction, rehearsals? Many, many hours!».
Then, it was necessary to start designing the characters in this play, the puppets. «Handling puppets requires training, patience, dedication», guarantees the EVT teacher. “A lot of patience and concentration”, adds Carla Travessa.
The puppet piece has almost no lines, almost everything involves the movement of the puppets, the music (Oriental), the dance that the puppets do. “Kids laugh at things that adults don't find very funny,” he explains. And in the end, the audience, the children, can move and manipulate the puppets, to see how they are and how they work.
The material used to make the puppets is mostly recycled (newspapers, for example) or reused. «There's a lot we had at home», explains Carla Paixão. “But there were some things we bought, like tulle curtains,” says Carla Travessa.
All to ensure that these puppets are sufficiently expressive, but at the same time simple, to be able to tell the story to this very young but very demanding audience. «We cannot use, with pre-school kids, very complicated puppets. It has to be a more expressive work, with more exact movements, because they are very small kids», considers Fátima Mártires.
The adaptation of the stories or their main elements was a lot of work, thinking about this special audience. «The stories of One Thousand and One Nights are very complicated and all have deaths. In fact, the plot is based on the threat of Xerazade's death, who tries to escape this sentence by always telling one more story. Turning all this into a simple plot is not easy», guarantees the artist.
Basically, he explained, "we started by filling a bottle with ideas and then we were withdrawing, we were withdrawing, to leave only the essentials."
This essential, the puppet theater play «Uma Noite», was premiered this week, in four sessions for schools and closes on Saturday with another session, for families. But if this article whet your appetite to go watch, maybe you'd better give it up. It's just that even the last session is already full. But cheer up: there are talks with the trio of artists so that the play can be performed again in January.
“There are many requests, from schools that could not come now due to lack of space, from parents. We will probably return here in January, but that depends on Tempo's production», reveals Fátima Mártires.
“There is a lot of demand for shows, for activities for younger children, because there is little for them”.
The trio of artists from Portimão already has other and even more ambitious plans: a puppet play for babies. “It will be an even simpler language, more “gugu-dah”, explains Carla Travessa. And for when, I wanted the Sul Informação know? “It's not up to us. For our part, the work is done and ready to present». We are waiting!
Photos of: Patricia Canha/Tempo
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