Created and recreated by Socrates, Plato and Ze Celso in an ode to love, the musical *The Banquet* is showing at Oficina Thea(c)tre , dec(h)anting musical verses in a great orgiastic gala banquet created to celebrate Love, Eros! All sessions have English subtitles for the present public. To have access to the subtitles, just sit on the first floor of the gallery, facing the band.
*The Banquet* in 2015, is a Lyric Poetry, a Musical with Solos, Choral Chants, with a sophisticated band and video created live! It runs always linked to the events of the present times in the Ethernity of Antique Poetry.
The public is placed around a Large Banquet Table and among the Galleries, where it lives with actuators the experience of a Philosophers’ ceremony, drinking fine wines, inspiring ever present speeches that approach especially the Care for Oneself and the Other, in all forms of love.
*The Banquet* brings to the scene mythical entities reunited in a party hosted by a great Greek actor, Agathon (Marcelo Drummond). Among his guests are Socrates (Zé Celso), Aristophanes (Sylvia Prado), Diotima (Camila Mota and Céllia Nascimento), Heraclitus (Letícia Coura) and Alcibiades (Fred Steffen), among others, incorporating characters from Greek mythology: Orpheus, Eurydice, Zeus, Jesus and Iemanja. In this sensorial feast, the public is invited to celebrate, eat fruit and drink much more than wine: musical verses, dec(h)anted for thousands of years, the time of a poetic inspiration created by many toasts. Thus, the “platonic love”, considered only spiritual, is revealed as the sensual love of the “electric body-soul” = Lust.
*”The Brazilian Regression hurts and today Homophobia, Racism, the Mercantilism of Human Bodies are seen as Freedom of Action and Thought. In this full cultural squeeze, we enter the Scene with the most Radical Theater from the times in which Humanity used to took care of itself, but always living the Now, when we take care more than ever, universally, of us mortals, because we are living a year that is plenty of mistreatment and hatred towards living beings: humans, animals, minerals, vegetables, water beings … “- Zé Celso.*
*The Banquet* was first assembled attending to an invitation of the Zagreb Festival in Croatia, in June 2009. Then it started a hugely successful season at the Oficina Thea(c)ter, starting in 2010 for a grand tour through several Brazilian capitals in the project Dionisíacas on Tour. Now it comes back with the cast which has lived some of its seasons (Marcelo Drummond, Camila Mota, Sylvia Prado, Leticia Coura, Fred Steffen, Zé Celso, Céllia Nascimento, Roderick Himeros, Acauã Sol and Rodrigo Andreolli), and the actuators from the Association Oficina Uzyna Uzona Theater that are living this play for the first time (Nash Laila, Danielle Rosa, Tony Reis, Joana Medeiros, Carolina Henriques, Lucas Andrade, Eduardo Pelizzari and Ariel Roche). The Banquet has a great live band and transmission of all sessions through the Internet, @ www.teatroficina.com.br.
*The Banquet*
*Directed by José Celso Martinez Corrêa*
*Councillor Poet:* Catherine Hirsch
*Dramaturgy:* Plato, Socrates and Zé Celso.
“Full cast and crew”:http://teatroficina.com.br/menus/45/posts/873
*Date / Time:*
*06/06, Saturday,18h*
*13/06, Saturday,18h*
*27/06, Saturday,18h*
*Duration:* 5h + intermission
*Location:* Oficina Theater – Jaceguai Street, 520. Tel: + 55 11 3106-2818.
*Tickets:* R $ 50,00 (full price), R$ 25.00 (half) and R$ 5.00 (Bixiga residents). Available at the theater box office (one hour before each session) or online at the “Compre Ingresso’s website”:http://www.compreingressos.com/espetaculos/4340-O-Banquete.
*Capacity:* 300 seats
*Age rate:* 18 years
*Live broadcast @ the website www.teatroficina.com.br*
*English subtitles!*