United artists meet in April with the Lisbon Chamber on the eviction of the Teatro da Politécnica | theater
The United Artists will meet on the 6th of April with those responsible for the Lisbon Chamber, following the indication that the lease contract for the Teatro da Politécnica, Where are located since 2011, will expire in February 2023, the company’s source told Lusa.
Five days after the death of the director and founder of the death of the director and founder Jorge Melo, on the 14th, he was hired by the company of days hired by the rector of the University of Lisbon that it had no intention of renewing him or had said on Wednesday, also to Lusa, the actor and director João Meireles, partner and co-founder of the company.
According to João Meireles, the rector of the University of Lisbon, Luís Ferreira, claimed that he needed that space to install other services. Lusa contacted the Rectory of Lisbon, not yet having a response.
“This month has been a month of unpleasant surprises, it has been terrifying”, João Meireles told Lusa, also alluding to the death of the company’s founder, aged 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.
The United Artists have been at the Teatro da Politécnica since 2011, following a constantly renewed contract with the University of Lisbon. In the beginning, the contract was for three years and, later, it became two, noted 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 with the councilor for Culture of the Lisbon City Council on the decision of the Rectory, and the decision of the decision with the company.
A situation “that is not new”, remembered. “It’s a repetition of what has already happened and there’s only one since August that we left A Capital, 20 years ago”, dates from August 29, at a time in Lisbon, then chaired by Pedro Santana Lopes. forced the group to leave the A Capital building, in Bairro Alto. Apparently renewed, in fact, we have the problem of all the Artists resolved, but resolved for all to come by contract and always in this precariousness of having a contract that is not at all coming”, he indicated.
When the company was 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”, said João Meireles, saying that the company is experiencing “an affliction”. “Because we have a project 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 a space, is not viable”, he said.
“It does not cross my mind that United Artists remain confined to an office and produce for those who want to welcome”, he stressed. If that happened, a loss of identity, a loss of place that was not recognized as being the identity of Jorge Silva, he concluded, which will disappear when it almost appears that it was Melo, as if it had not existed. ”.
The United Artists was formed from the group that debuted, in 1995, António, a Boy from Lisbon. The End or Have Mercy on Us, PrometheusJorge Silva Mello, The Fall of the Selfish Johann Fatzerof Brecht, and Coriolanusof Shakespeare, were among the productions with which they took their first steps.
Plays by the main contemporary dramaturgies, by playwrights such as Sarah Kane, Gregory Motton, Jon Fosse, David Harrower, Mark O’Rowe, Xavier Durringer, Spiro Scimone, and by the Portuguese José Maria Vieira Mendes, Rui Guilherme Lopes and Francisco Luís Parreira, have already been company bets, and co-productions, seminars and staged readings, such as those dedicated to Scottish and Dutch theatre, and to the works of Sarah Kane, Arne Sierens and Antonio Onetti.
With the closed closing, the artists after the United Company or June was addressed to Jorge, where the theater will remain until the theater for theater has renounced) for the use of theater) . Convento das Livrinhos In addition to shows and Mónica, Artistas Unidos are also organized by the collection, initially in collaboration with Snob de Teatro da Cotovia and since March 2021, with the publisher of Cotovia and since March 2021.
In a statement sent to the press this Wednesday, the United Artists asked: “How are we going to survive without a space if this is one of the requirements for the quadrennial? How are we going to secure productions and commitments to third parties? How can we continue? We’re not done yet. We are the United Artists, actors, directors, writers, set designers, producers and we would like to continue doing theater.”