Pedro Mexia

Sweden

São João National Theatre (Porto, Portugal)

Main stage
HU
RO
EN
12+
1h 30' without intermission

Egerman
António Fonseca
 
Monika
Joana Carvalho
 
Stromberg
Jorge Mota
 
Eva
Lisa Reis
 
Marianne
Patrícia Queirós
 
Björn
Paulo Freixinho
 
Johannes / TV Host
Pedro Frias

directed by
Nuno Cardoso
 
set designer
F. Ribeiro
 
costume design
Nélson Vieira
 
music
Pedro “Peixe” Cardoso
 
director's assistant
Mafalda Lencastre
 
light design
Cárin Geada

“In Sweden, they say they don’t need social distancing, because being Swedish is all about that”, said the writer Pedro Mexia, who has long been fascinated by that Scandinavian country. In Sweden – his first work for the stage – he explores the suspicion that all of us have “a certain idea” of Sweden. A diffuse mythology, so to speak: the “metaphysical-anguished” country of Bergman’s filmography, the (lost?) paradise of social democracy, but also the homeland of fiendish Strindberg or sugary ABBA. The play takes us to the aftermath of the September 1976 elections, which marked the end of half a century of Swedish Social Democratic Party rule. The elections coincide with the marriage of Monika, the daughter of Egerman, a bitter, sexagenarian, “withdrawn-from-the-world” intellectual, who does not conceal his satisfaction with the political change. Directed by Nuno Cardoso, artistic director of the TNSJ, Suécia is a place where the idea of future, the end of illusions and good intentions are all under debate. A place where the boundary lines between public and private, political and intimate become blurred.