Companhia do Chapitô
| Collective creation: | Companhia do Chapitô |
| Artistic director: | José Carlos Garcia |
| Starring: | Jorge Cruz, Nádia Santos and Tiago Viegas |
| Technical director: | David Gonçalo Florentino |
| Text in Spanish: | María Guerrero and César Arias |
| Production director: | Tânia Melo Rodrigues |
| Distribution: | César Arias – MARMORE |
“An utterly original and impactful take”.El Día
There may be some who are still unaware of the classic myth of Oedipus. Son
of King Laius and Queen Jocasta of Thebes, Oedipus was abandoned at birth
on Mount Cithaeron after the oracle predicts that the son would kill his
father and marry his mother. The child was collected by shepherds who took
him to the Court of Polybus, King of Corinth. On becoming an adult, he goes
to see the oracle at Delphi because he doubts his true origin and the
oracle recommends that he abandon his homeland. Oedipus set off on a
journey to escape his inexorable destiny in which he will commit patricide
and incest and duels with monsters, plagues and other perils along the way.
In summary, is Oedipus his own mother's husband or his wife's child? And
their children? Would they also be his brother and sisters, his wife's
children or would their mother be the grandmother of her own children?
Moreover, would Creon be his uncle or his brother in law?
This terrible story plagued with misery, woe, confusion, fatality and death
is told with great humour, in the purest style of the Companhia do Chapitô
in Edipo, an "inadaptation" that comically reinvents Sophocles’
classic, free of complexes. This troupe is renowned for its physical work
and collective creativity, understanding theatre as a tool of socialisation
and that, from the margins, has found a space to communicate with the
public, putting the classics within reach of large audiences as is the case
here with Edipo. The Companhia do Chapitô has been around for over
two decades and 31 shows, revolutionising the stages of Portugal and half
the world with original creations that, through humour, question the
physical and social reality that surrounds us. The performance at the
Autumn to Spring Festival should be a real hit in Madrid. Despite being
very well known around Spain, they have never before presented one of their
acclaimed productions in the capital.
On a bare stage, a cast of three dressed in their street clothes give life
to an endless series of characters in a fine exercise in virtuosity that
uses the classics, and everything that gives our western culture meaning,
to question a 21st century audience. A show that disobeys all the rules of
Greek tragedy to establish a pleasant and ground breaking bridge between
gestures and words. In the words of the company itself, "we appropriate the
events and reinterpret the details; we demystify the oracles and make
comedy out of tragedy”.