Marcelo Rubens Paiva directs play 'God is a DJ' in Rio
Starring Maria Ribeiro and Marcos Damigo, the play by German playwright Falk Richter is being staged in Brazil for the first time.
Monitored by cameras 24 hours a day, a couple reveals their intimacy to the world. Or a patch of it. Showing in Rio, "God Is a DJ" is Marcelo Rubens Paiva's new directorial effort. And it deals with a situation that is almost commonplace in the age of social media: it unveils the frayed and tenuous boundaries between public and private life.
Starring Maria Ribeiro and Marcos Damigo, the play by German playwright Falk Richter has already been translated into more than 30 languages, but had never been staged in Brazil. Locked inside an art gallery, a DJ and a VJ question the notion of reality. What is real in a media-driven world?
Interestingly, "God Is a DJ" was written in 1998. "A year before the first version of the Big Brother program aired," recalls Paiva. It is, therefore, a time when the internet was still faltering, a distant world, in which reality shows had not yet become a craze.
But it wasn't just the theme that captivated the director. This is the second time the writer and journalist has taken on the task of directing a text that isn't his own. And, in this case, the way the author crafts his dramaturgy also served as an attraction. "Richter plays with theatrical games all the time. And I like these situations that allow you to desacralize theater," he comments.
At every moment, the actors break down the separation between stage and audience. There are also plenty of humorous moments, a certain acerbic look at what we've become accustomed to seeing as banal: the moment when we become the very product to be advertised, commercialized.
The performance doesn't take place in a conventional theater, but in a glass cube built in the courtyard of the Oi Futuro cultural center. Just like the art gallery described in Richter's text, the space won't only be open during performance times. Occupied with works by photographer Vicente de Mello – created especially for the performance – it will be open for visits throughout the day. This information comes from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
Service
God Is a DJ
Location: Oi Futuro
2nd of December Street, 63, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro
Phone Number: (021) 3131-3060
Schedule: Thursday to Sunday, at 8 PM - until November 13th
Price: $ 15