To arrive at a place and look.
Alentejo – so many Alentejos – an enormous and dense region.
To live in this place.
To look with the eyes of the questioner.

At this southern stop of the Viagem a Portugal project (a name we borrowed from José Saramago), the travellers from Teatro do Vestido search, as if digging, in a vast territory between Santiago do Cacém and Odemira. People, names, stories and objects pass by in front of these travellers, who make them part of a journey that seeks to tell some of the life stories, memories and geography of these places. Like someone who digs, and in that digging will discover more and more layers, without ever getting to the bottom, reaching the rock underneath it all.

How many layers do we need to excavate / strip away before we feel part of a territory?

The traveller that José Saramago talks about in his Viagem a Portugal wonders about his reason for traveling. All travellers do, and yet the journey itself always overshadows these questions. In the melee of the kilometres covered, the journey wins.

In Teatro do Vestido’s Viagem a Portugal, the journey becomes a presence engraved on the landscape in a travelling performance, the result of the relationship of research and permanence on the ground, and the creation of human bonds, which allow us to know and get to know stories and to be able to retell them in form of theatre.

“There’s never been any shortage of landscape in the world.
hatever else may be lacking, the landscape always remains (...).”

José Saramago, Levantado do Chão

Artistic and technical credits

Joana Craveiro Direction, text, and research coordination

Estêvão Antunes, Francisco Madureira, Joana Craveiro, Mafalda Pereira, Tânia Guerreiro, Tozé Cunha Co-creation and performance

Tânia Guerreiro Costumes

Francisco Madureira Music and soundscaping

Carla Martinez Stage design

Leocádia Silva Lighting

Henrique Antunes Assistance

Alaíde Costa Production direction

A co-production by Lavrar o Mar and Teatro do Vestido