The play we saw,
roughly translated to “The Adventures and Misadventures of Captain Venture and
his Servant Girón”, is a good example of Educational Theatre. This type of
theatre is more commonly performed to young people, and tends to have a message
of morals and basic civic principles as the play develops. Like this play, it
has a very simple storyline (usually with a twist) and uses stereotypical
characters. This comedy is set on the house of Captain Venture, who is going to
propose to his loved one that day. Along with his servant and companion Girón,
they set out to the princess’s castle only to find out that an evil prince has
kidnapped her. They then set out on a quest to find her, coming across many
danger situations like facing a bear and an evil witch. After rescuing her, we
find out that the princess wasn’t really kidnapped and that it was her uncle
that set this test to see if the captain really loved her. The main messages of
this play were to be courageous and to help the innocent and weak; that there
is no problem in being afraid sometimes; the importance of friendship and
intelligence; and the classic “love conquers all”. The setting was quite
minimalistic, and there were very few props as well. The horse riding effect
was produced only by sound (the actors mimicked the hooves) and a small plastic
swimming pool constituted a river. There were four actors that played various
characters, and the acting style was very over-the-top and exaggerated (common
in Portuguese children’s plays). The forth wall was broken repeatedly, and
there were some parts were the character would come off stage and start
addressing and asking questions to the audience right beside them. This plus
the introduction of familiar characters (such as the little red ridding hood
and the bad wolf), managed to achieve a great level of audience interaction. In
the end, even though the play lacked in visual beauty and actual theatrical
value, it managed to achieve what it wanted: the play arose the audience and
there were moments of a good audience-actor interaction that made it fun to
watch.
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