"Open" Hamlet can be like opening a box of surprises, or even the Pandora's box in the mind of a character who is sometimes "devilish and psychotic". This is what happens in «Open Hamlet», by João Garcia Miguel, which will launch, today, Friday and tomorrow, the new season of Teatro das Figuras, in Faro, in two sessions that start at 21h30.
A play that debuts in Faro with the aim of not leaving anyone indifferent. More than that, «Open Hamlet» intends to be an event of union between performers and audience. “Come with an open mind, to participate in a night where, somehow, we expect not only the best from us, but also the best from the audience. We want a good audience, in the sense that they make the show with us», warned the creator and director of the play João Garcia Miguel, in a conversation with the Sul Informação.
The Portuguese stage director is working for the first time in the region, as a result of an invitation made to him by the Algarve association «ArQuente». Teatro das Figuras joined this partnership and the play was born, which has been in preparation for many months, «with advances and setbacks» motivated by the crisis.
«I like working with the classics. Ar Quente's proposal was to take a classic and transform it into something else. Opening it, as in the expression we use, to appropriate it and relate to it… it was almost a proposal to build a new text from Hamlet», he explained.
At the base of the play is a facet of the character Shakespeare created. In the view of João Garcia Miguel, Hamlet «is in constant reflexivity, in constant analysis of himself and others and has a very deep intuition, a capacity to perceive himself and others».
“We used that a little bit, that Hamlet ability to understand itself, to build this piece and analyze our relationship with the world, as well as the relationship we have with each other. In this sense, Hamlet served as a motto, as an example», described João Garcia Miguel.
“We ended up showing right in the name that our proposal is to overcome Hamlet, but, at the same time, also deal with the text. We left with this audacity, that Hamlet has already been done many times, but that we also wanted to have our own experience of this work, an authorial appropriation, of a group», he added.
Anyone who goes to Teatro das Figuras tonight or tomorrow should be prepared to watch a play that «has so much surprising that there may be people who might think that it has gone beyond theater, into a performative dimension, difficult to classify». But the play also has “an entertainment dimension”, where humor is not lacking.
«There is a part of the piece in which the audience is, in a way, provoked and urged to participate, to build in their own mind what is their relationship with these objects of contemporary art, where there is a challenge to interactivity and even to a common intelligence. Discuss, like, hate… finally, prepare to be encouraged to be more active than in a normal play», said the director of the play. On stage, the audience will interact with actors Ricardo Mendonça, Teresa da Silva and Vítor Gil Silva.
The fact that Teatro das Figuras is betting on the creation of a local structure, based on a text and staged by a Portuguese, to launch the season «is positive», but João Garcia Miguel is not too enthusiastic, for now. "It was good that this was a measure that remained in place", becoming a common practice in Teatro das Figuras, he said, but only the future will tell, he considered.
For now, only these two sessions are scheduled, although the idea of the director and ArQuente is to try to take the play to other places in the country, a possibility that is already being worked on. Tickets for today's and tomorrow's shows at Teatro das Figuras today cost 7,5 euros.
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