Theatre Reading Club | Light of Perdition

Theatre Reading Club

Gil Vicente Academic Theatre

January 12, 2021 | 6:30 pm

Maria da Luz, reputable scientific researcher in the area of human vision is gradually losing her sight in an ironic twist of fate. The play presents her efforts to deal with the problem, shows an exciting love story and a vengeful scientific betrayal, and sketches a ferocity portrait of a scientific lab, a habitat of researchers immersed in competitive and demanding professional paths. All this in a world controlled by the mysterious shadow of a character named Dr. Light.

Marionet was responsible, between 2009 and 2015, for coordinating the collaborative creation of six theatre plays, written and presented together with scientists in the context of the European Researchers’ Night (ERN), in partnership with the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra. “Light of Perdition” is one of those plays, and was written by a group of researchers and professionals from different scientific areas, responding to a challenge from ERN 2015 to create a play about LIGHT, in the year of the commemoration of the International Year of Light. The play deals with specific subjects related to the scientific research context, like hierarchical organisation and power, scientific priority, science funding, as well as the more universal and unavoidable human relationships.

Mário Montenegro was invited to direct this session of the Theatre Reading Club, an initiative that joins Gil Vicente Academic Theatre and A Escola da Noite theatre company, and that occurs monthly, with informal readings dedicated to the texts of a particular playwright or writer. The goal is to divulge, promote and expand the knowledge about dramaturgy.