¡QUE SALGA ARISTOFANES! / ALMADA FESTIVAL
Francesco Chiaro in Persinsala 5 Julho 2023 | notícia online
O Festival de Almada, em Portugal, celebra a sua 40ª edição com alguns dos mais destacados criadores e companhias nacionais e internacionais. Vinte espectáculos de teatro, dança e novo circo (oito portugueses, doze estrangeiros) serão apresentados em nove palcos de Almada e Lisboa. E que melhor maneira de começar do que com a mais recente produção de Els Joglars – Valha-nos Aristófanes!
Ever since 1962, when it was founded by acclaimed actor and playwright Albert Boadella, the Catalan theatre company Els Joglars has always been going for the throat of society’s hypocrisies – an attitude that earned them not only imprisonment and court martial punishment during Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, but also quite a lot of court cases even when democracy was in full swing. Taking the school of classical mime as its starting point and adding every possible dramatic element to it, the 61-year-old company of Iberian thespians -now under the direction of Ramon Fontserè- returns to the scenes after a four-year hiatus with a caustic, hilarious and definitely controversial piece about freedom of expression – and its current lack thereof.
By placing themselves under the aegis of Aristophanes -the Father of Comedy and ridiculing satire- the histrionic minstrels from Barcelona carry out a 90-minutes-long attack on the threats of an ultra-protective society responsible for the infantilization of the adult world, now turned into «an illusion, a Disney World in which art must be correct, easy and harmless. A lubricated art». Set in the static-filled halls of a green, sustainable psycho-cultural rehabilitation centre somewhere in Spain, Let Aristophanes Out! (¡Que salga Aristófanes!) follows the slapstick mishaps of a very diverse group of people with psychiatric disabilities as they go about their therapeutic attempts to put up a theatre show about the Greek comedy writer himself.
Drenched in puns and punchlines about the alleged over-politicisation of Art and Society as a whole, with its politically-correct ghost always looming over every single utterance, Let Aristophanes Out! barrages its audience with satirical thunderbolts that range from making fun of non-binary adjectives (one of the guests of the psycho-cultural centre used to be a journalist who lost his marbles while insisting on using only he/she adjectives in his articles), to mocking critical race theory, decolonisation processes and politically-involved, woke youths, not to mention islamophobia, anti-speciesism and fairy tales retelling. The main responsible for this deluge of provocations and the main character in both the play and the mise en abyme, is, of course, an old, cantankerous Classics university lecturer laid-off after a mob of indignant students demanded his resignation over a series of accusations such as mobbing and verbal sexual assault, amongst other things.
«Laughter is an extraordinary form of mental hygiene, and we comedians have been making people laugh since ancient times for the catharsis and comfort of the audience», states the play’s description, and laughter indeed abounds in Els Joglars’ latest production – but at what cost? Claiming their work to be a libertarian gesture conveyed through the 25-century-old «bitter yet authentic» words of Aristophanes, Ramon Fontserè, Pilar Sáenz, Dolors Tuneu, Javier Villena, Alberto Castrillo-Ferrer and Angelo Crotti «dare to speak about society» in order to defend themselves against the «so-called “cancel culture” that is starting to be felt in Europe, coming from the Anglo-Saxon world».
Meant as an invitation to reflect on the limits of moral and freedom of expression, it seems like Els Joglars’ play hangs ever so vaguely in the balance between leftist self-critique and right-wing reactionism. Indeed, by stirring up a lot of dust with its thunderous attitude and thus leaving no stone unturned in this all-round tirade against the current state of things, Let Aristophanes Out! appears to reproduce that same political polarisation it so tentatively criticises. As a matter of fact, by making a laughing stock out of every form of cultural boycott that provides for the centralisation of accountability in a society protected by centuries of puritan bigotry and privilege, this modern-day comedy misses out on a very good opportunity to contribute to changes in opinion, calling out rather than in.
And as it often happens in controversial, politically-charged performances, the most interesting part is played by the audience – stimulated by these contrasting messages, Almada’s happy-go-lucky theatregoers seem to bask in the sound of their own laughs, cracking up at even the most ridiculous phallic allusion, nodding away at everything that the very convincing actors spit out, undeterred by the extremely problematic stances that some of these funny little characters seem to have. And when the time for roaring applauses comes, every chance of reflection and debate fades in the moonlit, careless night.
The show was played within the 40th Almada Festival
D.Antonio da Costa School (Main Stage)
Av. Prof. Egas Moniz – Almada (Lisbon)
Tuesday 04, 2023
22:00the Almada Festival presents
¡Que salga Aristófanes! / Let Aristophanes Out!
by Els Joglarswith Ramon Fontserè, Pilar Sáenz, Dolors Tuneu, Javier Villena, Alberto Castrillo-Ferrer, Angelo Crotti
direction Ramon Fontserè
set design Anna Tusell
light design Bernart Jansà
sound design David Angulo
costumes Pilar Sáenz
artistic advisor Martina Cabanas
stage direction Alberto Castrillo-Ferrer