The Eternal War of the Sexes

As with most captivating stories, the plot is relatively simple. The protagonist Guiomar Bravo (played by soprano Ana Barros) is the owner of a bar located in a forsaken wilderness where she works and lives on her own.

Bino Mota (played by tenor João Cipriano Martins) is an unemployed sailor interested in marrying her - thus combining work with pleasure by also running her bar. But all his efforts to win Guiomar over are doomed.

One day, in between bottles of beer, he makes the acquaintance of German Edmund Tavares (played by Nuno Dias) who brags about his feats while in the Special Forces.

Amidst the bravado of the two, they hatch the foolish plan to fake a burglary at the bar, designed to frighten Guiomar. Then, at just the right time, Mota would enter and save her from harm and peril. A heroic act intended to trick her into agreeing to marry him.

However, things go terribly wrong. “Our main interest is to put on a show that is rather on the humoristic side”, explains the 42 year old director José Lourenço, a veteran of comedy. He has worked already with ACTA in 2008, in «A Lição de Offenbach - the Lesson of Offenbach», a co-production with the Orchestra of the Algarve.

Judging by the colours and the ambient, the show has a touch of cartoon flair, but according to the director, this is an evolution that resulted from working with the actors on the play rather than a premeditated aesthetic choice. “Also, it has more to do with the influence of Tó Quintas, the stage and set designer, than anything else”, he confides.

Instead of an English pub of the XIX century as envisioned by the composer and feminine activist Ethel Smyth, ACTA has put on stage a colourful camping caravan. “I found that idea rather appealing as it defines the public space of the men as opposed to the private sphere of the woman rather nicely.

Another interesting aspect is that this most likely will be the most multi-lingual production in the history of the Algarve company to date. The dialogues are in Portuguese, English and German and flow in a natural form, fluid and easily understandable for any speaker of these languages.

The whole play is accompanied live by the pianist Paula Conceição.

José Lourenço returns to ACTA for the premiere on 27th May of «Ensaio Aberto, Elenco Incerto» in Faro, an interactive project with the audience combining theatre and music, based on an idea by Jean-François Sivadier. “The story basically revolves around an orchestra rehearsing for an opera and the public will be seated in the chairs of the musicians and up front will be the maestro giving them instructions”, he reveals.

Next follows the comedy «George Dandin», by Molière, directed by Luis Vicente on 6th November in Portimão.