Creations

“They said that on the other side there was a path that would cut the time of the quest in half”… is the absurdly long - but absolutely deliberate - title of a play based on a peculiar process of investigation and creation.

Throughout 2019, three artists (Ana Vitorino, Carlos Costa and João Martins) embarked on three very personal quests that led them (respectively) to an exercise in memorizing and collecting the names and curiosities of all the countries in the world, to learning surf and taking on the risk of investing in an wave energy company, and to rediscover the practice of drawing and replace screen time with observation and recording time.

The starting point: to conceive a show about confrontation and overcoming, about everything that becomes clearer when we give it enough time, about the patterns that emerge when we laboriously repeat the small gestures of a task, believing that the process will reveal the final meaning.

Throughout their journeys – because a quest is always a journey -, the three artists lost track of each other, almost forgetting that they were looking for a common something. On their return, they realized that the meaning of the challenge had, after all, been different: a personal confrontation with what disturbs them in the past, what challenges them in the present, and what scares them in the future. And the rediscovery of the reason for being and creating together, which the hysterical time of everyday life so often seems to dilute.

From the spoils accumulated throughout their individual quests, they designed a creation that speaks of the disturbances, challenges and fears that are, after all, everyone’s.
 

Direction and Dramaturgy: Ana Vitorino, Carlos Costa, João Martins Co-creation Inês de Carvalho, José A. Nunes, Kaffe Matthews, Nuno Barbosa, Pedro Correia Cast: Ana Vitorino, Carlos Costa, João Martins, Maria Manada Executive Production Amarílis Felizes Co-production: Visões Úteis, National Theatre S. João, Municipal Theatre of Vila Real

World première – 24th October 2020 / AGORA Theater Jubiläumsfest, St. Vith (Belgium) - Postponed to 2022, due to the pandemic
Portuguese première – 6th November 2020 / Municipal Theatre of Vila Real