ULISSES’ ANGST
Created by Rui Catalão

Dramaturgical workshop
9th-13th December 2024
Castro Daire Municipal Library

A co-production between Binaural Nodar and the Castro Daire Municipal Library, with the support of the Castro Daire School Group and EPMS – Mariana Seixas Professional School.

There is a new and rapidly growing population in Europe, much younger than the average age of the rest of the European population, who have a different experience of familiar landscapes. Inspired by the misadventures of the Homeric hero, the Ulysses syndrome, or “emigrant syndrome with chronic and multiple stress”, describes the severe condition that afflicts immigrants and refugees. It’s a term coined by Spanish psychiatrist Joseba Achotegui to describe the feeling of loss associated with the process of moving from one place, with familiar habits and presences, to another where everything is unknown.

Based on the psychiatric concept of Ulisses’ Angst syndrome, and the symptoms associated with it, the theatrical research for the creation Ulisses’ Angst focused on family life stories, based on personal testimonies of this experience. The collection of material, using interviews and testimonies, aimed to define texts in the form of monologues. In the process, people from different migrant communities were involved in the show. The choice to involve performers with life stories related to the theme was due to the value of first-person experience. Their bodily behavior, their memory, their experience are all important to the work. With great attention to aspects of identity that define the culture, character and origins of the participants, the work is anchored in dramaturgy: it was based on interviews that the play’s dramaturgy was defined. The interviewees could even be the interpreters of the stories. 

The cycle of workshops developed in Castro Daire followed the following methodology: based on interviews conducted for the development of the play Ulisses’ Angst, the participants did reading exercises. Using cell phones as a reading medium, they explored the scenic and choreographic dimension of the texts, as well as the process of immersion in the characters they played.

Rui Catalão:

Articulating theatrical concepts and genres such as theater-documentary, theater-journalism, community theater and theater-autobiographical, of which he was a pioneer, crossing text with choreographic movement, and structured improvisation with the fixation of spontaneous gestures, Rui Catalão involves the communities where he intervenes in the creative process, in the production and dissemination of the shows. 

Rui Catalão promotes a structuring working model for the community involved: the working group should become progressively autonomous as the project progresses. As an example: since he began working with inhabitants of the African diaspora in the Vale da Amoreira neighborhood in 2015, Rui Catalão has directed seven plays based on the stories of these people and their process of adaptation. In the meantime, the group has become autonomous: Artepólon Associação now produces its own shows, directed by Joãozinho da Costa, and runs the “E agora faz tu” workshop, designed by Rui Catalão, in local schools. 

Technical data:

Conception and direction: Rui Catalão

Technical director: João Chicó

Production Manager: Marta Moreira

Production and Management: Irreal

Co-production: Teatro Rivoli – Teatro Municipal do Porto; Festival Todos – Caminhada de Culturas; Futurama; Fórum Cultural José Manuel Figueiredo/Centro de Experimentação Artística; Teatro A Oficina; Binaural Nodar and Teatro das Figuras

Institutional support: Portuguese Republic – Culture / Directorate-General for the Arts, GDA Foundation.

Photographs by Liliana Silva for Binaural Nodar.

Binaural Nodar is an organization supported by the Portuguese Republic – Culture | Directorate-General for the Arts.