Cásima, hidden forever in the coolness of the fountain in Loulé, is certainly not as hot as the audience and actors did yesterday afternoon during the representation of the legend of the enchanted Moorish that the group «Ao Luar Teatro» did, in the small square opposite the Municipal Museum of Aljezur.
The sun was high (it was 16 pm when the performance started) and little by little the spectators left the benches in front of the small stage made with a replica of an ox cart – in the way of the acrobats -, to the coolness of the shade from the Museum building, half a dozen meters to the side.
Resistant to the sun, without noticing a word of what was said there, but fascinated by the sound and performance, there was almost only one sixty-year-old German lady, in shorts, thick hiking boots and a backpack on her back, who was walking along the Rota Vicentina on foot, with her husband and a couple friends.
"I didn't understand the words, but I realized that it is a story of Moors and Christians, by the gestures and drawings that the actor was showing", the lady told the Sul Informação. “It was a good surprise to find this show here in Aljezur!”, he concluded.
At the end, among the clapping of thirty people, including some children, who defied the heat and steep streets of Aljezur to watch the show, Rui Penas, director of the group «Ao Luar Teatro», put his turban on a bank, to “in the way of the acrobats”, collect donations. And the public was not asked.
The actor, in conversation with the Sul Informação, confessed to having had difficulty orienting the small stage in relation to the sun. “We walked around and ended up placing the stage so that the sun was right in the public's eyes…”, he lamented. Things that happen in these arts Santimbancas.
Rui Penas, with his thunderous voice, told the tragic story of the Moorish Cássima, in a work based on the work of Francisco Xavier de Ataíde de Oliveira, aided by a puppet show that he put around his neck and where scenarios and puppets of kings followed. Moors, Christians and enchanted Moors (dolls by Filipa Faísca, de Querença).
At the foot of the stage, two young women sang and played the flute and drums: Ana Figueiras, professor at the Conservatório de Música de Loulé, musical director of «Ao Luar Teatro» and member of the group «Flor-de-Sal», and actress Liliana Life.
The performance, with the historical center of the village of Aljezur as the stage and setting, was promoted by the Regional Directorate of Culture and the Municipal Museum of Aljezur, integrating the DiVaM program and the celebrations of the European Heritage Days.
Photos: Elisabete Rodrigues|Sul Informação
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