Martial in scene costumes

Presented on March 2, 2004, at the end of the scientific workshop Celebration of Martial 2004, the play consists of the collection and dramatization of several epigrams of the Latin poet, commemorating the 1900 years passed on his death, re-enacting his life and work. Starting with a lively first banquet scene, where the author’s most characteristic social portraits – such as the drunken, the inheritance hunters, lawyers or the effeminate – are represented, the characters, all of them unnamed, allegorically simulate Martial’s return to his homeland in Hispania, the beautiful Bilbilis. Here he contemplates the simplicity of life, uttering diatribes to the city rhythm and all its vices. But no one just leaves a city like Rome. There is a longing for the cosmopolitan agitation and the play ends with the disenchantment and the (suggested) death of the central character. Everything is symbolic. The result is nothing more than an exercise of representation, among other possible, of the artist’s life and work. An artist, but especially a man who influenced his time and posteriority with an acute critical and satirical sense and a keen cult of the best and worst of life.

Carlos A. Martins de Jesus, in Maria de Fátima Silva (coord.), Representações de Teatro Clássico no Portugal Contemporâneo III (Coimbra, FLUC, 2004) 178.

Selection of texts: José Luís Brandão

Choreography: Carla Braz

Advisers: Delfim Leão e José Luís Brandão

Sound: Carlos Jesus e Tiago Cabral

Lights: Carlos Santos

Wardrobe: Carla Braz, Luísa Nazaré Ferreira e Inês Santos

Props: Carlos Santos e Inês Santos

Cast

Carlos Jesus

Carla Braz

Mariana Matias

Verónica Fachada

Patrícia Martinho

Sónia Simões

Natália Alves

Isabel dos Santos

Bruno Simões

Eduardo Conceição

Ana Catarina Rodrigues

Ândrea de Oliveira

Joana Cruz

Lia Nunes