Historical

Teatro Regional da Serra do Montemuro was born in 1990, from a meeting with local, national and international artists in the small village of Campo Benfeito, at the top of Serra do Montemuro.

One of the main artistic characterisitics of this theatrical company is its choice to create original texts, which are inspired in the world around it. The plays are conceived in a collective procedure that unites actors, writers, stage managers, scenographers and compositors in the creation of these performances.

TRSM is inspired in the popular culture, from the Lazarim Masks to the Popular Saints and from the silent films to the fado, without ever creating “easy” or condescendent performances.

It´s a contemporary theatre, strongly and assumidly rooted in the rural environment, but its activity occurs along the national territory and more and more in the European stage.

The text plays an essential role. Above all, we are story tellers. The narrative line is the skeleton of all our work.
However, the text and the word aren´t the single language of our performances, not even the main one. Stage-settings, patterns, masks, music, emotion: all these things make part of a complex theatrical language, that talks to very different kinds of public, allowing each spectator to become acquainted with the play the way he wants.

The power and the delivery of its actors distinguishes Teatro do Montemuro artisticly. Its style of performance is physically and emotionally stressful for actors, who are particularly impressive due to their union on stage as well as their strong presence and their capacity to unfold characters.

Since we are set in the rural environment, we must be an itinerant company. Furthermore, we have a vocation for it. One of the attributes that differentiates us is our ability to exhibit a performance in almost any place. We are able to present the same performances at Culturgest or CCB today in the same way we present them in an association in Beira Baixa or in a parochial room in Serra do Gerês the day after. We always do it with the same strictness.
One of the most innovative factors of TRSM work is the experimentation with alternative devices and the relationship between the actor and the spectator. We execute performances for conventional stages, but we also present them in double-faced stages, arenas or with the public in “promenade”.
The variety of the performances is essential for TRSM and for the public as well. In the last two years, for instance:
A Caminho do Oeste – 3 monologues about the subject river

Eira dos Cães – from Macbeth, Shakespeare

Carrada de Bestas – open air performance

Deixem-me Ressonar – comedy about hospitals, illnesses and death

Vasco na Cama – theatre for scholar public

Grande Aventura – outdoor theatre

Hotel Tomilho – large level installation in Antwerp.

Our educational work and our work for schools is commendable. We use a melting of theatre, story tellers, partaking and debate to explore deep subjects, such as democracy, justice, honour, the principles, death, the spirit of adventure, at the same time we explore more conventional curricular areas, such as Ancient Greece, the Environment and the Discoveries

TRSM holds in its centre a firm nucleus of six people who constitue the artistic council of the company. It´s a compact structure, that invests with its resources and powers mainly in the creation and exhibition of new contemporary theatre plays. In this work it relies on the cooperation of a large variety of cooperators, national and international professionals.

One of the main principles of the company is to sustain the growth of this constant but gradual structure, without loosing the sense of sustainability. However, the individual and collective artistic growth is a constant worry and we do everything to keep TRSM in a constant condition of evolution.