United Artists meet in April with Lisbon City Council on closing of Teatro da Politécnica – Observer
The organizers of the Lisbon Chamber, the Unidos theater agency of April 2020, announce the imminence of Artistas Unidos for the April 2020 theater, a company source told the Lusa agency this Friday.
Five days before the death of the director and founder of the University of Lisbon, Jorge Melo, on the 14th, the company was registered in the Silva days, by the rector of the University of Lisbon, that this Had the intention to renew or not the current lease contract of the Teatro da Politécnicanext February since 2011, next and ending in the year, said, on Wednesday, at the Lusa agency, the actor and director João Meireles, partner and co-founder of the company.
According to João Meire, the rector of the University of Lisbon, Luís Ferreira, the company that the institution was not designed to renew the rental contract for the Teatro Politécnica, claiming it needed the installation of spaces. Lusa contacted the Rectory of the University of Lisbon, the answer still.
“This month has been a month of unpleasant surprises, it has been terrifying,” João Meireles told Lusa on Wednesday, also alluding to the death of the company’s founder, at the age of 73.
“It has been heavy for this group of people and for so many other people who are around us and are our friends,” he said.
Jorge Silva Melo died. Reactions to the disappearance of “one of the most emblematic theaters in Portuguese”
The United Artists have been at the Teatro da Politécnica since 2011, following a contract that has always been renewed with the University of Lisbon.
In the beginning, it was three years old and, later, it became two years old, João Meireles. “We stayed, once again, since we left A Capital, with the house on our backs”, underlined the actor and director.
On Wednesday, this partner, actor and director of Artistas Unidos also mentioned that, “in an informal moment”, he had already spoken about the decision of the Rectory, not they renewed the contract with the Councilor for Culture of the Lisbon City Council, and let him stay with the company.
The imminence of no theater is not a new situation for United Artists who, on August 29, 2002, were forced to leave the A Capitalby decision of the Lisbon municipality, then chaired by Santana Lopes.
“Wait, I think, we’ve already taken care of everyone’s heads United, that we’re 11 years ago at Teatro da Politécnicawhat is resolved, but, in fact, comes to resolve it to each one according to the determination of a defined problem and without a contract that is not renewed”,
When they were forced to leave A Capital, there was a “commitment” by the Lisbon municipality to find “a lasting, stable and dignified solution”. “20 years have passed and it is still not resolved”, João lived, on Wednesday Meireles, emphasizing that the company is “an affliction”.
“Because we have one that has become solid, viable, with Jorge [Silva Melo]who, in the meantime, formed this team and this workforce and production and creation and that, without having a space, it is not viable”, he said.
“It will not cross my mind that the United Artists are confined to an office and produce for those who want to welcome them”, he maintained.
If that happens, “it’s a loss of identity, a loss of place that hasn’t been recognizedobviously”, he concluded, highlighting everything that, “when this tutelary figure, who was Jorge Silva Melo, disappears, it collapses almost as if it had not existed”.
The United Artists were formed from the group that debuted, in 1995, “António, um Rapaz de Lisboa”, by Jorge Silva Melo.
Plays by Brecht and Shakespeare were among the productions with which they took their first steps.
Sarah Kane, Gregory Motton, Jon Fosse, David Harrower, Mark O’Rowe, Xavier Durringer, Spiro Scimone, and the Portuguese Jorge Silva Melo, José Maria Vieira Mendes, Rui Guilherme Lopes and Francisco Luís Parreira were other playwrights put on the stage by the company, as well as classics like Melville, Kleist, Kafka.
Contemporary authors such as Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter were others who marked the shows brought to the scene by the company whose work is still marked by hosting shows, co-productions, seminars and staged readings.
With the closing of the Capital, to present “Baal, the Artists of the United or after Brecht” for the Tab Theater, where they will remain until June 2005.
At Taborda, he staged authors such as the Brothers Neilson Joeram Presniakov, Anthony Davide Enia Enia, putting on stage by Luc Lagarce, putting on stage in plays, Scimone, Judith Herz Herzberg, Jon Fosse, and José Maria Vieira Mendes, and Jacques Pré.
In 2006, after having given up the use of Teatro Taborda, a company directed by Jorge Silva Melo was installed in the former Convento das Mónicas, where plays by Antonio Tarantino, Juan Mayorga, Vieira Mendes and Gerardjan Rijnders premiered.
Judith Herzberg, Enda Walsh, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jesper Halle, Miguel Castro Caldas, Jorge Silva Melo or José Maria Vieira Mendes were other playwrights on stage for the company at this time.
In addition to shows and film production, Artists Unidos also organize exhibitions by Sofia Areal, Álvaro Lapa, Pedro Proença, Xana, Pedro Chorão, Miguel Ribeiro, Michael Biberstein, Ana Isabel Miranda Rodrigues, Sérgio Pombo, Barbara Lessing, Ana Vieira, Ângelo de Sousa, Manuel San Payo, Ivo, Nikias Skapinakis, Jorge Martins.
They are also responsible for the Livrinhos de Teatro collection, initially in collaboration with the publisher Cotovia and, since March 2021, with Snob.