'La distance': a dystopia that convinces, excites and hooks

"Why? Why?" And more than 20 whys. That seven-year-old girl on the beach who ignored her father's words not to go into the sea and ended up being rescued amidst a plague of jellyfish is gone. "Why? Why?" The distance It's a dystopian work by director and playwright Tiago Rodrigues about parents' fear for their children's future and also about the hope for a new world that leaves behind the disaster of our humanity. The daughter embarks on a space mission to Mars, where a new society is being built that, to prosper, must forget the past. Forget everything. Forget Earth, even if they want to preserve olive oil made without olives. And the daughter has committed herself to this adventure of no return.

She left without saying a word. Father and daughter can only communicate through recorded messages. They can't even see each other. Messages go, messages come, crossing 225 million kilometers. Rodrigues's text contrasts the father's desire and love for his daughter to return home with her unwavering resolve. It's a conversation under the pressure of passing days. There's a window of time to change her mind. Time that is running out. They love each other. They tell him, but the die is cast.

Tiago Rodrigues's theatre never strays from a human commitment to our world, whether more overt or more contextual, as in this The distancewhere it acts as the driving force behind the relationship between father and daughter. Premiered at the Avignon Festival, which Rodrigues directs, the production is convincing, moving, and captivating. To the magnificent performances of Alison Deschamps and Adama Diop must be added a well-designed stage set that vividly evokes the two worlds and rotates like the planets. The work also features superb lighting design and a beautiful song by Caetano Veloso to close the performance:I don't fear, I don't despair / You taught me thousands of things / I have a dream of mine / Amanhã will be a new day / Certainly I was happier"