Lear

Once the interior renovation works of the TNSJ finished, the theatre continues along its path on the shoulders of giants. On a brand-new stage, director Nuno Cardoso combines the immortal classic Rei Lear(King Lear), amplified by a new translation by António M. Feijó, with a cast that brings together actors from their almost resident company and others that once made history on the stage of the TNSJ, mingling times, memories and affections. As vast and powerful as the mind of its main character, Lear irradiates a sort of “cosmic anxiety”. Stanley Cavell, the author of Disowning Knowledge, one of the inaugural titles of Empilhadora, our new book collection, states that this play is “about the interpenetration and confusion of politics with love”, with “love wielding itself in gestures of power, power extending itself with claims of love”. By exchanging pure power for ambiguous love, Lear ushers in tragedy, which here takes on a ferociously political form. The consequences of this? Cavell tells us: “[P]olitics becomes private, and so vanishes, with power left to serve hatred”.

A production within the scope of the cooperation programme with the Cape Verdean Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries