A Praia
Event
Danish Peter Asmussen’s (1957-2016) oeuvre includes theatre, opera, novel, film and television. His play “A Praia” [The Beach] (1996) appealed to João Reis, an actor and stage director so inextricably linked with the history of this Theatre: “What is extraordinary about this text is that, despite the impending catastrophe, there is still room for one last breath.” Two couples meet during a summer holiday in a deserted hotel on the Nordic coast, returning to it year after year. Doubts, demons, melancholic exaltation blur, with each return, the boundaries between conviviality, confession and confrontation. “Whoever seeks or repeats a place where nothing happens is saying goodbye or running away from something.” The performance takes us through the restlessness and misunderstandings of “this quartet, almost always out of tune”, the things that are left unsaid, the always unsatisfied need for solace. “It is from this impossibility that the strength and game of approach and escape of this text come”, says João Reis. “As if the characters were waiting for someone who could rescue them and lead them back to another place, even if in a deceptive harmony.”
