Pedro Penim
Pères & fils
© Pères & fils,Pedro Penim © Estelle Valente ©
© Pères & fils,Pedro Penim © Estelle Valente ©
Text and staging, Pedro Penim
Based on Ivan Tourgueniev
Featuring Ana Tang, André e. Teodósio, David Costa, Diogo Bento, Hugo van der Ding, Joana Barrios, João Abreu, Pedro Penim, Rita Blanco, Olívia
Staging assistant, Bernardo de Lacerda
Choreography consultant, Luiz Antunes
Set Designer, Joana Sousa
Assistant set designer, Filipe Dominguez
Costumes, Joana Barrios
Costume design, Rosário Balbi
Doll creation, António Vieira Imaginações Reborn
Video, Jorge Jácome
Lighting design, Daniel Worm d'Assumpção
Sound design, Miguel Lucas Mendes
Lighting manager, Tiago Coelho
Sound manager, Pedro Baptista
Production Management, Marisa F. Falcón
Production, Rita Pessoa
Communication, Mafalda Jacinto
Co-produced by Teatro Praga (Lisbon); Teatro Nacional São João (Porto); São Luiz Teatro Municipal (Lisbon)
Co-directed by Théâtre de la Ville-Paris; Festival d’Automne à Paris
Many thanks to Griffehairstyle / Hospital de Bonecas
This event is part of the 2022 France-Portugal Season
With support of LVMH, member of the Sponsors Committee of the 2022 France-Portugal Season
In partnership with France Culture
In this Pères & fils, the new director of the Theatre of Lisbon, Pedro Penim, blends Turgenev’s novel, Fathers and Sons, with a contemporary reflection on the abolition of the patriarchal family structure. The words of the feminist theorist Sophie Lewis echo in the light of the past.
Pedro Penim is a founder member of the Teatro Prago collective, which roughly translates as “Scourge Theatre”. This gives a strong indication as to the artistic universe of this Portuguese director and author, as well as his links with Tg STAN and his collaborative approach to the stage. In Pais & Filhos, he uses two literary sources to explore a contemporary debate, that of surrogate motherhood and the raising of a family. On the one hand, he draws upon a great work of Russia’s cultural inheritance, Fathers and Sons, written by Turgenev in 1826, and on the other, the essay Full Surrogacy Now. Feminism Against Family, published by the American writer, Sophie Lewis. In this text, she defends surrogate pregnancy, thereby raising questions of a wider nature about the family as a patriarchal structure. Pedro Penim probes into classic works in search of the voice for the present, and as such, his latest piece is a vibrant place of reflexion on today’s world. Drawing upon his own experience of fatherhood, he takes biographical material and blends it into a work of fiction. The piece raises thought-provoking questions about the transformation of the traditional family unit.
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