How do you tell the story of water? How do you narrate something with no beginning or end, something that flows through geological eras, bodies, oceans, tears, clouds, rivers, glaciers, databases, mythologies and catastrophes? In Towards a Brief History of Water, Teatro Praga responds to this impossible question with a performance that is at once documentary, comedy, ecological essay, metatheatrical farce and siren song.

During what appears to be the recording of a television programme about water, we follow a presenter obsessed with order, rigour and narrative, determined to condense millions of years of history into a single broadcast. Around him, an unlikely team of aquatic creatures, assistants, mermaids, droplets, algae, corals and timeless entities continually resist this attempt at organisation. Through scientific facts, interruptions, improvisations, production mishaps and narrative detours, the performance becomes a dispute between two ways of looking at the world: the human need to construct linear stories and the circular, unstable and unpredictable nature of water.

Driven by comic, dizzying writing, Towards a Brief History of Water brings together references to geology, climatology, marine biology, digital culture, mythology, documentary television and the contemporary ecological crisis. In this universe, Jacques Cousteau meets Moses, Poseidon dresses up as Captain Iglo, a meteorite tells its version of the origin of life on Earth, coral turns into a choir, and a simple bottle of water becomes the object of an impossible desire.

But behind the humour and absurdity lies an urgent question: is it possible to tell the story of water without turning it into a story about ourselves?

A Teatro Praga performance

M/14

Creation André e. Teodósio and José Maria Vieira Mendes
Cast Ângelo Castro, Joana Barrios, Martinho Silva, Patrícia Bruheim and Tomás Garcez
Set Design Luís Lázaro Matos

Set Design Assistant Joana Sousa

Original Music Alex D’Alva Teixeira
Costumes Joana Barrios

Choreography André “Speedy” Garcia
Lighting Design Daniel Worm D’Assumpção

Technical Director Hélio Silva Pereira

Sound Technician Miguel Serrão Pereira
Production Director Teresa Miguel
Executive Producer Rita Pessoa
Communications Coordinator Inês Lampreia
Design & Social Media Maria Nave

Poster Photography Carlos Pinto
Accounting Teresa Cunha

Acknowledgements Francisco Vidal

Co-production Teatro Praga, Centro Cultural de Belém, Teatro Diogo Bernardes

Supported by República Portuguesa – Cultura, Juventude e Desporto / DGARTES – Direção-Geral das Artes