Spring Awakening, Frank Wedekind’s well known play written in 1891, deals with a group of adolescents in conflict with a conservative and moralistic society. The cruelty and love among pairs, the generation conflict, suicide, despair, are some of the main themes chosen by the interpretative tradition of this text.
By invitation of Centro Cultural de Belém, Teatro Praga returns to a classic of dramatic literature in order to inscribe, in a text and on the theatrical canon, those who are excluded by a so called representative theatre. We intend to work the lyrical expressionism of a shapeless adolescence, with its own language that tries to get away from a logic that divides reality in cynical and sincere or poetic and rational. Our approach will try to look beyond dualisms and build a reality that tackles invisibility and puts one in contact with a certain strangeness.
Spring Awakening will be occupied by a puberty that deceits “nature”, that refuses the subjection of one body to another, the construction of identities, and takes hold of an emancipatory rite that tries to defy all traditional standardizations. A place where it is required for several languages to coexist, where references are lost and reconstructed, where despair is life and suicide means victory. It is a performance that follows a demand of a humanity to be invented.
A performance by | Teatro Praga
Text | Frank Wedekind with translation by José Maria Vieira Mendes
Cast | André e. Teodósio, Cláudia Jardim, Diogo Bento, Patrícia da Silva, Pedro Zegre Penim e com Cláudio Fernandes, Odete Ferreira, João Abreu, Mafalda Banquart, Óscar Silva, Rafaela Jacinto, Sara Leite e Xana Novais
Light design | Daniel Worm D’Assumpção
Set design | Bárbara Falcão Fernandes
Original score and Sound design | Miguel Lucas Mendes
Costume design | Joana Barrios and Mestre Costureira Rosário Balbi
Photography | Alípio Padilha
Head of production | Bruno Reis, Andreia Carneiro
Production assistant | Alexandra Baião
Executive production | Bernardo de Lacerda
Co-produciton | Teatro Praga, Centro Cultural de Belém, Teatro Nacional São João e Teatro Viriato
Artistic residency and premiere | 23 Milhas – Casa Cultura Ílhavo
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Length | 2h10
M/16
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