Menina Júlia
Event
August Strindberg crosses paths with Público Reservado, a company that specialises in idiosyncratic repertory theatre, with recent visits to the universes of Novarina, Handke, Lagarce or Pirandello. Now, in response to a challenge from the TNSJ, Público Reservado takes on “Menina Júlia” (Miss Julia) (1888), a play written in just two weeks. This urgency may explain why the verb “to love” is conjugated here as “a fever intersected by syncope of hate”, to use the words of the Swedish playwright. “Menina Júlia” tells us of the houses and walls that we still use to confine women, of bodies set loose in the wars of love, of a class struggle that is inseparable from the battle of the sexes. It is like an intimate sonata being performed in a social arena. Renata Portas looks at this turmoil and makes some wishes: “I would like this stage production to resemble an initiation dance: between Schnitzler's “La Ronde” and Larry Clark's “Kids”, an ode to sensuality, to beauty; and to that free fall experienced by Artaud, Rimbaud, Van Gogh and all those who dared to go into the abyss in themselves.”
