Portuguese director André Amalio and his Czech-born wife Tereza bring Perfect Match to Prague
André Amalio is an actor and director who specializes in documentary theater. He and his wife, Tereza Havličkova, co-founded a documentary theater company called Hotel Europa, based in Portugal. Magdalena Kadula caught up with them on their recent working visit to Prague.
Recently in Prague, there was a documentary theater festival organized by Tante Horse Theater Group, in which your company, Hotel Europa, participated and performed, along with local artists and international artists. Before we talk about the performance that you brought to us from Portugal, I was wondering if you could give us a quick summary of what documentary theater is and how you founded Hotel Europa.
“Well, I think documentary theater can mean different things. But for us, I would say it's non-fiction theater based on real life stories, real events, past historical events. And it is also a medium to work through theater in a more political and social way.”
How did you found your company, Hotel Europa?
“Tereza and I were classmates. We were in London, doing a master's degree in performance making. It was a program where people from different backgrounds could come together. I came from a theater background, having trained in acting and directing, while Tereza came from a contemporary dance background. We met there and started collaborating.
“ At the time, we were very interested in creating postmodern or post-dramatic work. Without fully realizing it, we were already doing documentary theater. Later, I went on to pursue a PhD and discovered that what we had been doing all along was, in fact, documentary theater. My PhD focused on documentary theater, particularly in relation to Portugal’s colonial past. That academic program was practice-based research, and our first piece emerged from my PhD work. In fact, the first three pieces we produced were born from that project. From there, we just continued the work.”
The performance you brought to us here in Prague was called Perfect Match. Could you tell us a little bit about that?
“So, this idea of Perfect Match, you know, the ideal person, the ideal place that you might find to live. And it's about migration. It's about people looking for the perfect place to live. But also, when you migrate, what happens to love? Because usually, when you tell these stories, people forget to tell us about their relationships. And love never stops existing. Even if it's not there anymore, it's still there. You know what I mean?
“So we were interested in hearing not only about the stories, but also the reason why these people moved there. How was the journey? How were they received? How was the beginning? But also what was happening with their love relationships? What was the story between them and their family? If they had a partner? If they had children? What love story could they share with us?
“Sometimes it was just the story of the love for their country that had started a war or that it was occupied by another country. Or there were other stories of people moving to that country, not because of work, but because they fell in love. And they wanted to find a way to continue their relationship. Or someone that just moved there, fell in love, and then the relationship disappeared. What do you do afterwards? So the performance was all about these themes.”
“We did a casting for this. In the beginning, we didn't really know how we were going to do it. We knew that we wanted to tell these stories. And it was in the process of doing interviews that we decided that we didn't want trained actors to tell the story of someone else. We wanted to have real people to tell their own stories. Even if they were already performers.
“We did an audition, a casting, where we were asking for non-Portuguese people that would have some migration story to tell. And it was actually in this casting that we realized that we had so much wonderful material that needed to be told. We found a musician from Colombia, who had a very interesting story. Growing up in a country that was kind of in a civil war with the two big guerrilla movements. And he was living in a place where one of the biggest guerrilla movements resided. He grew up seeing dead people on the street, or hiding from gunshots. We asked him about his experiences and how he found music. And then how he traveled to Europe, what are all the stigmas of a Colombian traveling to Europe that he lived through. It was really fascinating to hear him on the day of the casting. And we thought, this story needs to be told. And he's the best person to tell it. There should not be anyone else but him to tell it.
“It was through the casting that we started to gather the performers. And we also wanted to tell the story in a different way, not just on the migrants that come from countries that have more difficult economic, social issues or issues with war. But also we wanted to talk about people that come from richer countries, and are moving to the capitals in Europe. But in Portugal this is having a huge impact. Why are the countries opening up so well to people that come from richer countries? And are closing their doors completely for people that come from countries of need. So these are stories that we wanted to tell and to compare.”
I saw the performance, and I thought it was brilliant! I’m curious - since you co-directed the piece -how did you find bringing this performance to a Czech audience? Was it difficult? And, as someone who watched the performance yourself, what are your thoughts on how it was received?
“I don't think it was... Well, we have a Czech person, also the co-director of the company, Tereza Havlickova. She co-directed this performance, as well as all the performances of the company. She is also in this performance. We often appear in our own performances. I was not in this one since I am not a foreigner in Portugal. But Tereza was telling her story. So I think the Czech audience can quickly connect to themselves through the story of Tereza.
“There's also lots of people moving from the Czech Republic to other countries in Europe or to other countries in the world. And also the Czech Republic is receiving people from other places. I think the connection will be very instant although the people in our story are moving to Lisbon. I think that this place can be set in Prague or in Barcelona, Paris or London, it can be any of these capital cities that people choose to live in. And do the people that move there see it as the perfect match? And in this case I think it was a perfect match for all of our performers. I think they didn't move out of the country once we premiered the show they're still all living there so I think that's a good sign, yes.”
I think the audience here in the Czech Republic really liked it. I’m wondering, what is your biggest takeaway from this week at the documentary festival here in Prague, and what are you going to take back with you to Portugal?
“It was very interesting to witness how strong the documentary theater movement is here. I was really moved by it. The Portuguese documentary theater movement started a few years ago, and we are from one of the companies that started the movement. I'm very happy to see that it's also strong and interesting here.
“Of course, it’s always a little different. I think each country focuses on its own issues, the ones they need to talk about and deal with. But I was really interested and even wanted to see more. It was a whole week of documentary theater. We just missed the first show because we weren’t here yet, but throughout the week, we saw some very interesting work.
"I’m still fascinated by the fact that, although documentary theater has existed for many years, it’s still very new to lots of people. People still ask, "What is this about?" We hear that a lot. I think that’s good because you have the feeling that you are doing something new, something not yet known to everyone. And how people today connect with real stories – that’s also a sign of our times.
“ I often say we don’t need Hamlet, Shakespeare, or the big heroes anymore. Now, we are the heroes. Our stories deserve to be told, and they deserve to be told in a raw way, not shaped or perfect. I think we live in a time where rawness and imperfection suits us. At least, that’s what suits me, and it’s what I really enjoy seeing. That’s what I took away from this festival – I’m really full from all these stories.”
So what I didn't know is that you have quite some ties to the Czech Republic. Your wife Tereza Havličkova, is Czech, your children speak Czech and you also have taught at Hamu. What are the biggest differences you have observed between the Portuguese theater scene and the Czech theater, scene or other places you have taught at or directed in?
“Well, I think the differences are quite big. I would say that here, there is a strong conservative side. In Portugal, contemporary and traditional theater mix in quite an organic way. You can go to the National Theater, and we can be performing there one month, and the next month, you could see Chekhov or Shakespeare.
“But here, if you go to the National Theater, it’s more difficult to see contemporary work, at least on the main stage. That doesn’t happen in Lisbon or Porto, where the big national stages are.
“I think what’s very interesting here is the connection between the body and theater work. That’s something quite specific to the Czech – this connection between contemporary thought, the body in theater, and dance in theater, how the body works. So I think there are all these specificities. But I think the people who are working in more contemporary and alternative ways are pretty much working the same way.”
My final question is, how do you view the upcoming documentary theater scene in the Czech Republic? And will there be some collaboration between Hotel Europa and local Czech artists?
“Well I see that it’s expanding and growing. I think that is amazing. We are now talking about doing a collaboration in the future with Tantehorse and NIE. Also we are collaborating with the Akcent festival.
“We’ll be coming back here in November with our most recent show about the climate crisis, on the 17th and 18th of November. We’ll be performing at Ponec with a show called Climate Emergency, where climate activists take the stage to tell us what they want, why they want it, and why the world needs to change.
“We’re also planning a project with the company that runs Akcent, which is Archa. So, we’re collaborating quite intensively with people involved in documentary theater here."
