António Pedro and theatre in the future
"Born on December 9, 1909, in Praia, Cape Verde, António Pedro died in Moledo do Minho on August 17, 1966. He was one of the most multifaceted Portuguese characters of the 20th Century, whose knowledge and creativity covered various fields of Thought. He was a poet, playwright, journalist, author of revolutionary narrations and prose, editor, chronicler, painter, sculptor, ceramist, cartoonist, gallery owner, organizer of historic pageants, controversialist, pedagogue, art critic, BBC newscaster during World War II, author of radio and television programs, pioneer of new artistic-literary movements (the only Portuguese to sign the Dimensionist Manifesto in 1935 and to participate in international surrealist exhibitions in the 30’s and 40’s; he brought Surrealism to Portugal, in 1947) but he was, above all, a stage manager and the remarkable organizer of a theatre company in Portugal, the Teatro Experimental do Porto, TEP, which is still active.
Author of a project for the Teatro Alhambra, in the Parque Mayer (1937), he did his theatre apprenticeship in the 30’s, in Paris, São Paulo and London, where he became acquainted with the great theatre and the innovations that were taking place all around the World. In Lisbon, at the end of the 40’s, he theorized new concepts for Portuguese theatre in Diário de Lisboa and Mundo Literário, which he tried to put into practice with the Companheiros do Pátio das Comédias and the Apolo, Ginásio and Teatro do Salitre; however, he withdrew, disbelieving, given the barriers that he went up against because of the censorship and the usual theatrical academism that prevailed in the country in those days.
He retired to Moledo do Minho, where he devoted himself to ceramics for a while, but was invited by the Círculo de Cultura Teatral / Teatro Experimental do Porto, through Alexandre Babo and Eugénio de Andrade, to create a theatre school. He gave his first class on March 7, 1953, and the first performance on June 18. He was the artistic director of the TEP between 1953 and 1961, having debuted 36 shows during his mandate; he also created the Teatro de Algibeira (the first pocket theatre in the Iberian Peninsula), transformed the amateur group into a professional group (1957) and the TEP into the first cultural reference in Porto and first theatre reference in the Country; he made the CCT/TEP the biggest association in Porto, right after the Futebol Clube do Porto. It is unanimously acknowledged that he operated the only aesthetic revolution in Portuguese Theatre in the 20th Century by introducing modern staging, the sense of the unity of the show in which the actor gained another dimension associated to scenography, models, sound, light, and movement, in an aesthetic cohesion under the primacy of the stage manager. He trained two outstanding actors, Dalila Rocha and João Guedes as well as several fundamental references from the world of representation, he created shows for memory and alliances between theatre and plastic arts, architecture, music, engineering and, above all, citizenship. The TEP was the great cultural reference against censorship and the castrating methods of the dictatorship.
To commemorate António Pedro is to recall the profile of a Renaissance creator projected into the future. Of a man who sought knowledge in all areas of Thought, in order to project it to Theatre, which he viewed as the living synthesis of that same unity." in www.ctt.pt
Issue Date: 2009/09/01
Stamps:
€0,32 – 330 000
Souvenir sheet:
with 1 stamp
€3,16 – 60 000
Design: Eduardo Aires
Paper: 103 g/m2
Format / size:
Stamps: 40 x 30,6 mm
Souvenir sheet: 125 x 95 mm
Perforation:
Cross of Christ
Printing: offset
Printer: INCM
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