PESSOA - Since I’ve Been Me

PESSOA – Since I’ve Been Me is one of the highlights of this year’s Autumn Festival, as it brings together three legendary figures under a single title: the recently deceased Robert Wilson, actor María de Medeiros and author Fernando Pessoa.

The presence of the American Robert Wilson at the Autumn Festival has a special significance. Always hailed as the reference figure he is, his work is associated with a conception of theatre as a total visual experience, epitomised by seminal productions such as Einstein on the Beach and his collaborations with leading figures in contemporary music and literature. Wilson’s work has already taken its place in recent history as one of the most radical expressions of the contemporary international theatre scene: a form of theatre that defies a single interpretation and invites the audience to engage actively with the ambiguous, the fragmentary and the unresolved.

Wilson’s tribute to the Portuguese writer runs through this work, which offers a reflection on the multiplicity of the contemporary self. Based on texts by Pessoa and his heteronyms —Álvaro de Campos, Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis— the production unfolds as a constellation of staged scenes in which the spoken word appears fragmented, repeated or dissolved within a visual and auditory framework. It is a mesmerising piece of theatre in which irony and melancholy coexist.

The staging retains the essential features of “Wilson’s style”: highly expressive lighting design, frontal compositions and gliding movement.

For festival-goers, this premiere also offers the chance to see the theatre ensemble hand-picked by Wilson himself, led by the actress and singer María de Medeiros.