A stage called the Algarve

They’re not secrets but rather four plays imagined by Ana Cristina Oliveira. Their common ground is that they all speak of the Algarve. Not the seasonal tourist region we know today, but a place full of memories lost in time and space.

This book “is a project I’ve been working on for some years. I wrote my first theatre script in 1994 for the «Ideias do Levante» association in Lagoa. At the time, we wanted to do something innovative. By coincidence the project for the park at the Sítio das Fontes de Estombar was just starting. It is a place full of folklore so, some members of the group and I went to speak with millers in the area – and gather their stories,” she recalls.

“The Algarve is also rich in mythology about enchanted Moorish women - something which has always fascinated me - and we wanted to incorporate this in our piece. Hence «Memorial do Moliero», the play which launched amateur theatre association «Ideias do Levante» and opens the book.

After this first attempt at play writing, she went to teach Philosophy at the Escola Secundária Pinheiro e Rosa in Faro in 1995. Besides teaching, she found enough people and enthusiasm – fertile material for creativity - to start a theatre group.

“Since then, I have not stopped writing. Particularly for my students. I thought the time was right to compile these plays into a book and make them available for other school theatre groups to use,” she says.

Everything starts with an idea and thereafter a great deal of historical research because the plays have an educational component. Then there is the personal touch, that stamp - which brings it all together.

“I would say that female characters definitively stand out,” she says.

The backdrops for the plays are Lagoa, Portimão, Lagos and Faro. In each place, at a certain time in history, there is some female drama.

“There is the story of Joaninha, a woman who commits suicide because her husband, a miller from Estombar, has no time for her. Another from Lagos, who does not want her husband to leave for India at the time of the Discoveries. Also, Maria Adelaide, a young girl who befriends a large land owner and spends her life waiting for him to ask her to be his wife. And the story of two nuns who started a convent with the help of a Queen,” she adds.

In addition to writing, Ana Oliveria is also interested in the cultural reality of the region. She recently published a study «Meio Século de Teatro no Algarve – uma viagem pelo teatro da região de 1960 a 2006». (Half a century of theatre in the Algarve – a journey through theatre in the region between 1960 and 2006).

Her research not only gave her facts but taught her several lessons. “Most people arrive in the Algarve and think there is nothing here. This is not true! Perhaps we do not talk enough about what exists, and has existed. This motivated me to want to know more,” she explains.

“I noticed that since 2000, about 20 theatre groups have started. They’ve been born for a whole host of reasons but many were started by university-aged youngsters who came to the Algarve to study and wanted to do something creative. Some are still active,” she says.

However, today, she does not hide a certain disillusion. “I’ve been more hopeful in the past about the state of theatre. In fact there are four professional theatre companies, but ACTA is the only financed and organized structure – which allows it to employ 15 people. The others do not yet have the means to do this.”

At the amateur level, she believes that “it is important for groups to interact more and have joint-initiatives for training and sharing ideas.”

“Having said this, there is an interesting support network amongst groups when there is a need for stage props and material. However, I think that if we are really passionate about theatre, we need more joint-productions and more dynamic movement between the various groups,” she says.

This is not going to be her last book. “I’ve a drawer full of plays on a whole range of subjects, written over the last 15 years. I used theatre to transmit philosophical concepts to my students, for example. Others resulted from invitations and commissions. I remember that the Portuguese Youth Institute invited me to develop a piece about sexuality in adolescents. I think these should also be published and made available to other groups.”

«Segredos do Levante» will be presented by historian Graça Ventura and will have the participation of the choral group «Outras Vozes».