Huis-Clos – Europe Within 4 Walls

“The first step was that: how did we, shut in, react to this pandemic — but it’s also a look at Europe, because there are very different subjectivities struggling with this and against this, speaking about what surrounds and worries them,” he explained.

The production has a “fractal gaze”, almost as if it were “several facets of a diamond giving rise to several different Europes,” he stressed.

Julia Holewinska addresses the struggle in Poland against the government’s restrictions on abortion during the pandemic, which led to her imprisonment, as well as the fight of the LGBTQIA+ movement.

Deborah Pearson, in turn, portrays the experience of being a mother during lockdown and the difficulty of writing during that period.

Vanesa Sotelo explores solidarity in a story involving a nurse, an elderly woman and a refugee, in the midst of the pandemic, with characters full of contradictions and inconsistencies.

Maxi Obexer, who was confined in the Italian Alps, brings a more contemplative gaze, faced with the raw nature she saw from her window, while Ricardo Correia presents a more reflective text about living through lockdown and creating within that context, in which he also recalls the death of actor Bruno Candé.

Throughout the performance, several versions of the song “Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel can be heard, performed by artists such as James Blake and Silvia Pérez Cruz.

“There is some inner voice of ours that speaks to us and forces us to confront ourselves,” Ricardo Correia noted, considering that including several versions of the song ends up being a kind of metaphor for reflection in the context of the pandemic, and for the exercise of looking at the world from a window.