Margins of Reason

by Ricardo Nolasco

Masking tape, used so frequently, demarcates a territory and builds a frame that delimits the space. Floor and wall make up a universe: Jerusalem. Nothing enters or leaves this space, the characters of the book of the same name by Gonçalo M Tavares are there and remain there until the last scene, with no escape or hope. Jerusalem seems to be a psychiatric hospital (the presence of a “doctor” favors this reading), a city where tormented beings live or a hopeless portrait of humanity. What really matters is that the delimitation of space builds a place to be observed with its own logics and rules.

In a time of anti-asylum struggles and the de-pathologization of “mental torments” it is inevitable to reflect on this in the enjoyment of the spectacle. Deleuze and Guatari, in Anti Oedipus, present us with the hysterical body as the body itself without organs, erogenous and connected as in a single organ: a pure fluid in a state

of blunt freedom gliding over a full body. No mouth, no tongue, no teeth. I believe that after a turbulent 20th century of investigations in the field of psychology, it is common ground that the abnormality is related to the social framework. The surrealist movement sought artifices, completely involved in Freud's research, for madness. Artaud says that Van Gogh was the suicide of a society that killed one of its greatest art geniuses. In Jerusalem, on the other hand, metaphors and the production of meanings linked to madness are more developed than the anomalous state itself (different from what Artaud proposes in The Theater and Its Double), being an allegory for the world that creates monsters hostage to the rationalist fetish. Madness is represented and still understood as a figure of speech rather than a pursuit of staging. There are reflections on war horror as triggers of the narrative and a rigorous marking composed of constant falls.

Dramaturgy is inclined to take schizophrenic and hysterical discourses to form, builds layers, but does not radicalize this proposal. Even trying to experiment with resources, it is still very much linked to the structure of the dramatic and epic text when the inclination towards the postdramatic is perceived. The sound design is a highlight and a fundamental element of the staging, creating ambiance and drama, expanding the actors' work. Juliane Souto and Lígia Quirino in dazzling performances are, without a doubt, the most consistent performances of the 20th FAP Mostra, for now...