The mission of the Annual Festival of Academic Theatre is, ever since its first edition, to promote and divulge the Academic Theatre, guaranteeing it a place of honor in the cultural offerings of the city.
In its 22nd edition, FATAL presents workshops, labs, exhibitions and shows, distributed among four categories.
In 2023 we start with “Outras Cenas”, between May 4 and 17. Between May 18 and 27, In Competition shows selected by a group of specialists will be presented.
We will also have More FATAL, with shows of high quality that will not integrate the competition, and FATAL Invites with international groups that will contribute to the diversity of the festival.
Another edition, another year in which FATAL puts ULisboa and the capital in the route of the big European festivals of academic theatre.
At the most appropriate and fitting time, the Festival and the University dediced to recognize he who has been, throughout the last three decades, one of the most persistent, if not the biggest protagonist e dynamizer of the practice and teaching of academic theatre, regarding interpretation and creation, in ULisboa and in the country, the azorean actor, professor and stage director, Ávila Costa.
Although a considerable dose of partiality weighs in, since I was part of the Grupo de Teatro de Letras (Letras Theatre Group) (GTL) between 1998 and 2005, it would not be excessive to highlight something that is commonly and unanimously recognized by many in the world of academic and professional theatre. If for no other reason than the duration and intensity of this dedication and investment of his: part of GTL since 1989, until today, therefore a 34 year long uninterrupted commitment which is composed of a period of after hours rehearsals, five days a week, from the start until the end of the academic year. Forgive the neologism, another alma mater, but for academic theatre.
It is not only about quantity, but also about density: I will take this chance to highlight and register three key dates of this sui generispath in theatre. Firstly, Ávila Costa is admitted on a scholarship, in the Theatre Course of the Conservatório Nacional in 1976, age 24, already after finishing the mission of colaborating with FRELIMO, for the transition of power and the firearms surrender by the portuguese military, in the post 25th of april period, in Maputo. Salgueiro Maia was his commander in training for the specialty of military police. He had been summoned on April 24, 1974, suspending a Sociology course, with a scholarship from the azorean government, in ISCSPU.
Second was in October of 1989, a month shy of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which "trenched" itself in the direction of GTL, therefore distancing himself of theatre practices that were less cause driven. And now, third, this hommage in 2023, in the year after the ending of a global isolation, forced by the reasons known to us.
From these experiences and dates its important to filter three fundamental aspects related the theatre practices of Ávila Costa: total commitment and rigour as a working method, the ethical and political commitment in the training of the actors, the community (the collective) and the sharing of another, closer way of living.
Direct opponent of dictatorship, injustices and oppressions, he has also always strived to convey to his students, at the same time, the understanding of the dimension of "contradiction" in their processes.
Therefore, it can be said that Ávila Costa lives in some kind of "exile within his own nation", accompanied by the only "aristocracy", such as Mário Levrero defined: which can legitimately be distinguished as a class: youngsters.Ávila has been practicing and spreading this camaraderie on his own for 34 years. Its been this stance, that has made professional actors from different generations, since the late 80s, be the first ones to recognize him.
Rui Teigão
Programme Manager of FATAL from 2002 to 2017
Cultural Manager at DGARTES
The crisis in which this generation of university students lives ever since we have known, the pandemic, the war, the galloping inflation, runs across every show of this edition of FATAL. It is inevitable. It creates a whirlpool of normalisation of decadence, of acceptance of precarity, of atavisms, snoozes, quarantines, inactions, which the democratic theatre should question. It is not that theatre solves everything, but that the university groups show on stage that we are in a new phase, they do.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
The pain of the young, described by Ferdinand Bruckner in 1926, is their transition in time and space. A safe time and space, where everything is still possible and doable, and another time and space where everything has become questionable, censorable and cruel.
A model existential angst of a generation.
The generation of those shifting through roles, searching for their place, the ones that give up before trying, who expect immediate gratification everyday, who integrate and question themselves, who do not integrate, continues, in this time and space, to find reasons to question and censor.
Our time and our space are, nowadays, as dramatic as the time in which nazism rised in Europe, and are we not again, less than a hundred years later, “at war”? We can always compare times and people, and use metaphors, new myths. We can always do it because in theatre everything is possible. We can always do it because in academic theatre everything is still possible. The Academic Theatre, free of the reins of commercialism, of pop culture, of market fluctuations, of the easy likes, can affirm itself as the true theatre of thought, the University and the Academia are its bastions.
The theatre transports with itself the heritage of democracy, both were born at the same time, both are sons of the same Eumenides of which Aeschylus told us about. The Erinyes (Furies) which come to be the benevolent Eumenides. Those human feelings turned gods, placated forever in the altar of the popular tribunal. Aeschylus’s trilogy is not only the only complete trilogy to reach us, it is also the founder of western civilization.
And in this year’s FATAL, there will be very different ideas on stage. The selected groups for the category IN COMPETITION (TUP, NNT, GTL, GTIST, ARTEC, mISCuTEm), all present profound thinking and a profound relation between text and stage. It is the drama being born. The drama, as time and space for thought, of the action without any rational explanation. The drama as a place where individuals and collective imagination meet, with the position of the Other. The real place to inhabit, that of the character.
The matters of the day, inflation, house pricing, individualisation, come up like a therapy session or like an exorcism. There are texts about the lives of the students, there are waters contaminated with sediments, shakespearean myths, servers of two masters (how many jobs do we have?). We also saw the representativity and diversity as a unifying factor and not dividing factor, through the integration of multiple sensibilities, multiple chromaticities, languages and motricities.
All signs of good mental health. All signs that we are all still being studied, that we all remain in treatment. Signs which, we hope, are important to the lives of the spectators of FATAL’s shows this year.
The first step towards the cure is the acceptance of the etymology of the word illness itself.
Pedro Marques
Pedro Saavedra
Sandra Hung
The Festival’s Award ceremony for the 2023 edition and closing party/get-together.
The workshops are limited to the number of openings available.
Applications are made through a form and the openings will be filled by order of sign up. The results will be announced via e-mail.
Performance
André Marques, Bárbara Gomes, Nelson Sousa, Rita Poças e Rodrigo Machado
1h30 | subject to seat availability | free
FATAL Kids
Sara Anjo
1h | children between 3 and 10 years of age and families | free
FATAL Kids
Mariana Martins de Oliveira
3h | children between 6 and 10 years of age | 7,5€
Spoken Word
Lúcia Sousa, Mariana Belo, Mariana Paiva, Mariana Ribeiro
35' | subject to seat availability | free
Visual Arts Workshop
Tânia Dinis
4h | 12 participants | 7,5€
Oficina de Fotografia de Teatro
MEF - Luís Rocha e Tânia Araújo
8h | 10 participants | 90€/110€
Theater Writing Workshop
Rui Pina Coelho
4h | 20 participants | free
Alameda da Universidade
1649-004 Lisboa
Subway: Cidade Universitária (yellow line)
Bus: 731, 735, 738, 755, 764, 768
Alameda da Universidade
1649-004 Lisboa
Subway: Cidade Universitária (yellow line)
Bus: 731, 735, 738, 755, 764, 768
Campo Grande 18
1700-162 Lisboa
Subway: Campo Grande (yellow line/green)
Bus: 207, 701, 717, 731, 736, 750, 755, 767, 798
Junta de Freguesia de Benfica
Avenida Gomes Pereira, 17
1549-019 Lisboa
Bus: 716C, 724, 750, 784
Avenida de António José de Almeida
1049-001 Lisboa
Subway: Saldanha (linha amarela), Alameda (green line/red)
Bus: 712, 714, 727, 732, 738, 751, 756, 760, 724, 720, 742
The shows are free but subject to seat availability.
Reservation requests must be made via e-mail fatal@campus.ul.pt until 13:00 of the day of the show. The reservations require confirmation.
For the 22nd edition of FATAL, 6 shows were selected for the competition category.
Thanks to the sponsor Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, FATAL awarded, once again, two prizes of monetary nature: The FATAL Award distinguished the best show and the FATAL Award - City of Lisbon commended the most innovative show.
The public’s FATAL Award was attributed to the show that gets the highest rating from the Festival’s spectators.
Pedro Adão e Silva
Minister of Culture
Rui Pina Coelho
Director at the Centre of Theatre Studies of the School of Arts and Humanities of ULisboa
Diogo Moura
Councillor of the Municipal Council of Lisbon
António Feijó
President of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Elmano Margato
President of the Politécnico de Lisboa
Teresa Faria
Actress
Massimo Milella
Representing the Centre of Theatre Studies
David Antunes
Representing the Lisbon Theatre and Film School
Alexandra Sabino
Representing the Municipal Council of Lisbon
Helena Vaz da Silva
Representing the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation