UNDERGROUND, AN OBSCURE MUSICAL – a little report
Silke Bake
around
There have happened quite some collaborations between Paula Diogo and the Brasilian director, performer and play writer Alex Cassal, and Felipe Rocha (Director, actor, writer, musician and composer), and then also Renato Linhares (director, choreographer, actor and dancer). In 2009 & 2103 in collaboration with the company Mundo Perfeito by Magda Bizarro and Tiago Rodrigues which was at that time very much engaged in collective creations. Co-Producers were both times Teatro Maria Matos (Mark Deputter) and in 2013 also Bit Teater Garasjen.
Paula and Alex are the two artists who built the Lisbon based company Má-Criação (translated Bad Creation) which has a close relationship with a number of further artists as associées (among them Renato Linhares and Cláudia Gaiolas, who is also performig here). Foguetes Maravilha (translated Wonder Rockets) is a group which was founded by Alex Cassal and Felipe Rocha in 2008 in Brazil, meanwhile a number of other artists are part of it, also Renato Linhares.
Má-Criação and Foguetes Maravilha as well as another partner from Brazil – Dimenti – and Teatro Municipal S. Luiz coproduced this work.
Alex Cassal and Felipe Rocha wrote the text together, Paula Diogo and Renato Linhares directed the work together. Felipe Rocha and Renato Linhares are also performing.
In 2023, the companies are coming together again for performing in Porto/ Portugal.
the work itself
The base of the text/ theme is the Chilean mining accident which happened in 2010. At that time, 33 miners were trapped by the collapse of a transport line for 69 days at a depth of 700 metres. In the past, there had been several less dramatic accidents and the safety precautions in the mine had been criticised again and again. Obviously, they were still far from the legal requirements. Only two weeks before, the mine had been reopened for work. The clear distribution of roles and strict adherence to rules regarding food intake, organisation of ‘everyday life’ and the distribution of rooms according to necessary use led to a – as it was said – stable psychological condition of the 33 miners at the time of their rescue. They all survived.
The subtitle of the play “Subterrâneo / Underground” – “Um Musical Obscuro / an obscure musical” – perhaps already indicates that this historical model is – although not only used as an arbitrary occasion – nevertheless not processed in a moral or dry way to the extent that one might think possible.
Especially while not understanding the text directly (I managed to read half of a first rough translation between the first and the second visit) the ambiguous atmosphere might be even more obvious, and to be honest super pleasant (the ambiguity). It’s dark, that’s true. Only very slowly does the stage lighten a little, and one recognises outlines, one first, then two people in the beginning, more and more peu à peu, altogether nine people. Actors, dancers, musicians, some seems to be trained or talented in all of these professions.
A voice is the first thing that appears for quite a while, and here one quickly understands that the text is not concerned with the retelling or interpretation of a historical event.
The text is exploring “the hole” for quite a time,- with the voice, the sound, with the text -, it becomes a state, more than a narrative. The actress becomes a howling wolf, her voice is filing the entire dark space. It makes us arrive, gives us – the audience – a feeling of being in one space together. And even if the light slowly, almost imperceptibly becomes brighter, her body cannot be recognised for a very long time. The other body on the other side of the stage might be a man, his voice joins her after a while.
Hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, we’re in a hole, we’re all in a hole, hole, this is a hole, it’s a hole, we’re in a hole, we’re in a hole, we’re in a hole, hole, we’re in a hole, hole, hole, hole, hole, it’s a hole, we’re all in a hole, wide deep dark, hole, the hole is here, we’re in the hole, this is the hole we’re in, here in the hole, we can say, here is the hole, we’re in the hole, here where we’re standing everything is hole, the hole is everything there is, all that is, here in the hole all is negation negative rejection refusal absence no, here is no and we’re here, we’re all here together in this hole, everything is hole, hole, merely hole, hole, understand, it’s not a figure of speech, it’s not an example an image an hypothesis, it’s a hole, an actual hole, a real hole, hard hole, solid hole, concrete hole, dense hole, hole with accumulated geological extracts of stone under stone over stone, tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of stone, granite mostly, hard solid concrete dense heavy massive stone, tons and tons and tons and tons, I would have to repeat tons many more times to get close to the amount of tons of very hard stone above this hole, this hole we’re in, …
…
we are asleep intoxicated hypnotized wounded there’s no chance of mistaking that embrace for anything other than the hole, no one thinks ah how sweet, an anaconda is hugging me, how nice, a giant octopus pulling me into the abyssal depths no one returns from, a rat gnawing at my face, how cute, a virus colonizing my body, how lovely, ah this fever is a form of passion, that’s what transformation is, what transition is , what evolution is, what a joy, no, the hole thinks of itself as hole, hole, the hole warns you, look into the hole at your peril, the hole speaks of itself in the third person without any irony, look into the hole’s eye, says the hole, this eye is bloodshot, there’s dark blood in this black eye, the hole is raging, the hole is hungry, the hole is lacking, the hole is yearning, the hole has a black eye that opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes opens and closes opens and closes opens and closes opens and closes opens and closes in a dizzying peristalsis saying come inside come, it’s safe in here, it’s dark in here, it’s warm in here, you can pour your sediments your regrets your excesses, what’s in the hole stays in the hole, stay in the hole, come into the hole, enter the hole, become the hole, I am a hole and you are also a hole, to enter the hole is like entering oneself, exploring oneself, digging oneself, drilling oneself, fertilizing oneself, a blind serpent devouring its own tail, the tail of tail of the serpent’s tail, a perfect circle spinning in the void, ouroboros hole, wormhole, hole that has neither time nor space, neither beginning nor end only hole, hole that makes everything that isn’t hole yet become hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole the hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole in a hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole a hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole hole the hole hole hole hole hole hole a hole hole.
The text is only a rough translation (It was given to me just to understand a little bit). It is the beginning and the end of the beginning and is more than double longer… without a sentence ending, without a full stop.
It isn’t easy to describe the 2 hours of this evening, because it becomes an atmosphere over the time, less than aboutness. It isn’t a narrative anyway, and performing/acting, the speaking/ the text, the music/ the making of music, dancing are merging into each other.
The hole as something in which one feel trapped, locked-in, a situation of being depending on each other, of the ambiguous quality of being with others.
This is not like the TV series “Lost” in which a group of people survive a plane crash and so have to go through all the human abysses and dramas somewhere at the end of the world. It is also not like Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” (French original: “Huis Clos”), in which it is shown that hell is the others.
Nevertheless, there is struggling, with these feelings of being trapped, of the possibility of policing others, being policed by others, of depending on others, of not being able to leave. It is not, however, about exhibiting human suffering and drama, it floats through these states of mind, moves from voice to body from here to there, goes through the most diverse negotiations of and strategies in relationships.
“Yet I believe that being together is what saves us”, Paula says at the end in the evening programme booklet.
It feels like there are many associations triggered: the feeling of people during the pandemic as much as other climate change, a dead-end-like situation that humans have maneuvered themselves into as much as even political leaders who make hopeless decisions.
The music is part of the tools as much as words or bodies. The musicians are performing – with or without instrument, music becomes a ‘natural’ tool within the show. It tells, supports, it produces friction or irritation by taking away heaviness from the rest of the scene or the themes, it quotes familiar songs which are then discussed in dialogue, it supports or continues dialogue.
Probably most of the time everybody is on stage, while not always everybody is engaged in speaking, speaking to each other, dancing or making music. There is a constant flow of activities and energies on stage. It is an emotional, musical and sometimes philosophical wandering through stage space and stage time.
You get an idea of what the working process might have been like. Nothing was set in stone at the beginning, much came about through negotiation. And perhaps artistic collaboration sometimes feels like being together in a hole.
I don’t remember if the shows was 2, 21/2 or 3 hours, but it definitely didn’t feel so long.
Silke Bake, apap FEMINIST FUTURES
fotos @Estelle Valente