São Paulo – The stage is a large rug an on it five actors of the theater company Vila 8 retell the stories told by character Scheherazade in the literature classic One Thousand and One Nights. As the voice of the queen, they also tell stories about the Palestinians and the conflict with Israelis. And as the voice of Palestinians, they tell about the lives of one another.
That’s how the play “Arabian Nights” unfolds. The play will have two sessions on April 1, at Sesc Campinas, in Campinas, 93 km from São Paulo. The date will be of opening night for the play but also for the theater company, formed by former students and professors of Performing Arts of the state university Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp).
“It’s not about the conflict, it’s about the performance of narrating. It’s a need of men to narrate to give meaning”, says the play’s director, Eduardo Okamoto, who is a professor at the Performance Arts Department of Unicamp. The playwright of “Arabian Nights”, Etel Kopelman, is a professor at the same department.
Okamoto says that it all started three years ago, at Unicamp, with the creation of a study group on the labor of the actor, with students that now are all graduated. The conflict Israel-Palestine caught the attention of the artists because Brazil was receiving a lot of Arab refugees. So, the group started to research the accounts of the Palestinians about the conflict using sources such as newspapers and internet videos.
“What one notice is that the Palestinians are great narrators, they narrate the events with great dexterity”, says Okamoto, saying it’s a fight strategy and also a way of preserving traditions. He reminds that Scheherazade also narrates to avoid death. The actors spend all their time on stage on the large rug. “Confined, just as the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”, says the director.
Theater play Arabian Nights
April 1, 2016
Session on 7 and 9 PM
Teatro Sesc Campinas
Rua Dom José I, 270/333
Tickets: from BRL 5 (USD 1.33) to BRL 17 (USD 4.54)
Further information: http://www.sescsp.org.br/programacao/87376_NOITES+ARABES
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
