Um Hamlet a Mais

(one Hamlet too many)

Ophelia, Laertes, and shades of Hamlet

The Shakespeare text translated by António M. Feijó,
set by António M. Feijó and Ricardo Pais

a Ricardo Pais production.

with João Reis, António Durães, Luísa Cruz, Nicolau Pais, Pedro Almendra and Hugo Torres, set design and costumes by António Lagarto, original score (played live) by Vítor Rua, videos by Fabio Massimo Iaquone and Paulo Américo, sound design by Francisco Leal, light by Nuno Meira, fencing choreography Miguel Andrade Gomes, produced by Teatro Nacional S. João

Ricardo Pais returns to the Shakespearean text with "the essential drive of deciphering even more, of knowing more, and, most of all, of experimenting more, with that illusion of freedom that the insistent work over a text can bring". As major components in this experimental exercise, we find Vítor Ruas' music, the axis of the whole performative variation, together with the video work of Fabio Massimo Iaquone and Paulo Américo, which reverberates the most intimate gestures, captured through a micro-camera system, or the set design, by António Lagarto, a minimalist play between the closure of the space and the serial infinitude brought by video. The result is um Hamlet a mais ("One Hamlet too many"), divided between athletic hallucination and the musical, in a creation that continues the obsession of this Theatre with the word and vocal production (of which the recent production of Castro is an outstanding example), while "it stresses the topics of politics and misogyny, which are endemic to the play and the unrivalled verve of the protagonist".

(the text and picture below adapted from the "Portogofone" publicity. Portogofone is the TNSJ's own rapid programme of performances, concerts, readings and musical performances at unduly hours - an international meeting with conferences by some of the most skilled european professionals)

a "review "

TNSJ (Porto) - 17 March - 4 April 2004

Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Lisbon) - 16 April - 16 May 2004