Nuno Cardoso, theater director: "We have resigned from our duties as citizens"

Nuno Cardoso (Canas de Senhorim, 52 years old) was a happy and poor boy who learned to speak a Mozambican dialect and who tried to fulfill his family's dreams by studying Law at the University of Coimbra.

The theater swept away the jurisprudence in a few months.

No one will know if a Perry Mason was lost, but few doubt that the European scene has gained one of its most exciting directors.

Actor and founder of several companies, since 2019 he has directed the São João National Theater in Porto (TNSJ), which this year has co-produced a new version of

with the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya to celebrate the centenary of José Saramago, a bilingual production in Catalan and Portuguese which has been attended by more than 20,000 spectators.

His next work will be the adaptation of

, by António Lobo Antunes.

Cardoso, who in the past has staged works with prisoners and immigrants, may involve ex-combatants of the colonial war like his father on stage.

Ask.

What is the greatest blindness of today's society?

Reply.

Our inability to see the other and repair him generates enormous conflicts.

The blindness of consumerism and individualism disturbs our obligation to redistribute wealth and fight for the common good.

This part of our inability to feel empathy, to put yourself in the shoes of others.

From there stems everything from the inability of someone like Putin to admit another identity and feel attacked to our inability to recognize that immigrants coming to Europe are our blood of the future, not a problem.

Why does Trump win the elections?

It is simple.

People are sick of not being seen.

A jester appears and there is a vote of rage supporting him.

The main people responsible for this are not the extreme right forces, they only take advantage of it, they are the democratic and progressive forces,

Q.

Do you see that anger in Portuguese society?

R.

_

Yes. It is said that the Portuguese have

(mild manners), I do not agree with that.

In Portugal there is racism, there is discrimination and violence against women, what I think still exists is a possible time for dialogue.

Portugal is a tangential country, that has its advantages, but with the same problems.

We are also a European country integrated into a European project, which is a great experience, as great as American democracy, and there we are to play a life or death struggle between this idea that we are all equal and can live in a city ​​made to guarantee peace or the recognition of nationalisms, of fear.

Q.

Will this setback be a legacy of the war?

R.

Fear is the main blindness, but fear exists because we cause it.

Populisms have not arisen from a virginal conception, we also resign from our duties as citizens.

A democracy is made of attention, of constant participation.

For us, Ryanair flights, weekends in Marrakech, vacations are pleasant and we resign from investing in the system that has allowed us to do this.

When there are elections, if it's sunny and you don't go to vote because the beach is great, it's our responsibility.

There is a set of issues that seem to be resolved and are not, and in crisis situations like the current one, they stress the social fabric.

This society sustains itself as long as it produces excess wealth, which is done at the expense of another part of the planet.

When this goes into crisis,

Q.

Doing works with prisoners or with residents of marginal neighborhoods, is this your way of not resigning as a citizen?

R.

_

I try not to resign as a citizen in everything I do, be it as an artist, as a father or as a director of the national theater, but it is an effort because I also like slippers, the beach and those things.

This theater is not only the plays, it is also an educational center open to everyone, theater groups, mediation work.

We talk a lot about the rights that a citizen has but we have great difficulty identifying the duties.

I come from a very poor family, which instilled in me that I have a duty to improve things.

Sometimes I feel that the world of culture and art is so absorbed in its categories and complexities that they forget that we have no meaning if we don't work for others.

The theater was the vehicle I discovered to do that.

Q.

How did you get to Law and how did you get out of it to enter the theater?

R.

I am from a small place in the center of Portugal, Canas de Senhorim, which is my center of gravity.

I had a hyper-happy childhood between books, river and forests, a fantastic family.

We imagined Coimbra and graduates, Law School as something hyper-special, I was the first person in my family to go to university.

It was all a fiction, without knowing it I was already doing theater.

When I got to Law I suffered a huge shock because it was not my thing.

I was very lost when I found this course from the Coimbra Academy's Theater Initiation Circle.

At the audition they asked me why I wanted to enter and I said that I had read Shakespeare's works, which was a lie.

When I left the first class I said to myself: 'this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life'.

I was lucky and I have the possibility of telling stories as a way of life,

Q.

What differences are there between doing theater with professionals or with special communities such as prisoners?

R.

I dont know.

I only know how to do things in one way, be it with professionals or with citizens, which is from two to six, we work, we tell a story and it has to look good.

When I work on the repertoire I do it with professional actors, which is something that television stars should understand, they look good on television, please don't try to do repertory theater in Alexandrian verse because they don't have the technique to do it.

When I work with citizens, I require them to tell stories and have fun, I don't require technical virtuosity.

As in everything, it's a matter of empathy and perceiving what the limit of people's dignity is, it's about doing things for the public.

I have already been in prison, in the Cova da Moura, in the peripheral neighborhoods.

I am very lucky because at the same time that I do that and I am in very strange places,

The current entertainment does not think about the public, about giving, it is thinking about billing

Q.

Will you be the next Portuguese director who will end up directing a cultural institution in France?

It begins to be a trend after the departure of Tiago Rodrigues and Tiago Guedes to Avignon and Lyon.

A.

No, no.

I love to work outside but I am stock.

I am an old-fashioned director, I like the text and I take immense pleasure with my language.

I already have my dream place.

I am artistic director of the TNSJ, where I grew up, in the city that adopted me, in my country, in my language and therefore I want more here.

This does not mean having a closed vision of what Portugal is.

Our language is almost 300 million people, that's why I went to Cape Verde to do

, which is our seminal text in Creole.

Coming across a sister language, which is Catalan, was also fantastic.

I've had a few invites but not that many, because I'm a self-absorbed individual, not very likable.

Q.

Is culture increasingly confused with entertainment?

R.

There is confusion between art and culture, and between culture and entertainment.

Stig Dagerman wrote in

that theaters were full during the war.

Art is something extraordinary that will always trump entertainment, as seen now with Netflix and stuff.

To do theater someone needs the body, the voice and the imagination.

And from the public.

And then we tell stories about ourselves.

When we reach limit situations, this is very easy to summon.

The current entertainment does not think about the public, about giving, it is thinking about billing and that is anathema for any society.

But I am not afraid to fight against them, in resistance we are the turtle and we will win.

Art must be a communion with the community.

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