Seven months separate the military coup of September 11, 1973 in Chile, which ended with the death of President Salvador Allende and began the Chilean dictatorship, and the military coup of April 25, 1974 in Portugal, which ended with the longest dictatorship in Europe and marked the beginning of democracy in Portugal.
Fifty years later, Teatro Experimental do Porto (TEP) and Teatro La Maria, in Chile, unite, in a co-production, the two countries in a reconstruction of history “as it could have happened and not as it actually happened”, that is, a ucrony, in which Portugal is the only successful communist nation, and has ‘gulags’ in the Alentejo, and Chile is a democracy in crisis that aims to be what Portugal managed to be.
The story of “GOLP” begins with a Chilean group of Sopa de Letras athletes who end up as emissaries of the Chilean Government to the Portuguese Government to understand the success of communism. The Portuguese do not explain and the athletes end up killing the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs and declaring war on Portugal.
“We declare war, but tomorrow we leave first thing in the morning, you win, you annex Chile and our problems become your problems”, warn the “high caliber” athletes, even though they are amateurs.
“All this is absurd and even the war is false. It’s absurd and a comedy”, explained, on the sidelines of an essay for journalists, the author of the text and director of the company La Maria, Aléxis Moreno, who plays one of the athletes.
According to the artistic director of TEP and one of the communists of “GOLP”, Gonçalo Amorim, what was not expected was that the play, which premiered in Chile in September, “would premiere in Portugal in the week in which the Right comes to power” .
“Which does not mean that the work does not gain a new layer. When we debuted in Chile, the Portuguese context was different and our stance was to undermine a little the celebrations of the 25th of April and all the pomp that was created for that, a kind of national unanimity, we dressed up for the celebrations and forgot that there is a daily practice, which is necessary, of using rationality and it’s all just emotion”, he pointed out.
For Aléxis Moreno, emotion is “the greatest of all evils” in the society of social networks: “Is it possible to design a future only with emotional speeches? I do not think so. The excess of emotion, in which all speeches are rich in emotion, but they lack reason, nullifies reflection, taking advantage of empathy”.
“GOLP” is a work that is “in every way political”, but without a message: “Aléxis’ texts avoid sending a message. There are provocations, a lot of tension, a lot of conflict, no one is safe.”
“This show is very much about human stupidity, about the difficulty we have in using reason when it is necessary, especially to make political decisions”, continued Gonçalo Amorim.
“GOLP” makes its national debut on Thursday, at 7:30 pm, on the stage of the Grand Auditorium of Teatro Rivoli, in Porto, and will remain on stage until Saturday.
The play is directed by Aléxis Moreno and Gonçalo Amorim, who also perform, with the cast also consisting of Alexandra Von Hummel, Pedro Vilela, Manuel Peña and Patrícia Gonçalves.
This is the second artistic collaboration between the two companies, who presented, in 2021, “Estreito/Estrecho” in Portugal, Chile and Brazil.
JCR // TDI
Lusa/END
Tags: Play GOLP imagines stage perfect communist Portugal democratic Chile crisis
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