Luís Miguel Cintra, where life and theatre become blurred – Diário de Notícias – Lisbon

the primacy of The text and the thinking at the start, the beauty without limits to the arrival: this was the Cornucopia.

“The theater is a way of perceiving things and of living.” These are the words of Luís Miguel Cintra, said in an interview with DN last year and that sum up well the thinking of the actor and director, founder of Teatro da Cornucópia theatre as a privileged space for us to think about ourselves and the world. And this is valid for those who do it and those who see it.

it Was like that since the first day – one October 13, 1973 in which he made his debut at the Teatro Laura Alves, The Misanthrope, Moliere, and it will be so apart of the day today, when is the last public presentation of the Teatro da Cornucópia. By the medium are 126 creations that pass by Marivaux, Brecht, Gorki, Kroetz, Horváth, Buchner, Plauto, Dario Fo, Shakespeare, Gil Vicente, Beckett, and much more. Tragedies, comedies, dramas, farces.

In the centre of this activity is Luís Miguel Cintra, born in Madrid on the 29th of April 1949, son of the philologist and linguist, Luís Lindley Cintra. I was in the Faculty of Letters of Lisbon, when he began to do theater, with Jorge Silva Melo and others. In 1969 kicked off The Host, António José da Silva. It was from this adventure a university that would arise after The Cornucopia – with Wisteria Quartin, Dalila Rocha, Raquel Maria, Filipe La Féria, Luís Lima Barreto, and other accomplices.

From the beginning, the determination to present “classical texts universal”, that is, in asserting the primacy of the text and of thinking as a starting point of creation. But with the certainty that at the point of arrival would be a work that is aesthetically flawless, with great performances and great beauty. In 1979, Jorge Silva Melo leaves the company. Later, Cristina Reis will occupy the co-directed with Cintra, a recognition of the central role that the design and the aesthetic thought have always had in the Cornucopia.

Also since the beginning of this habit of the theatre and life are blurred. That to be there, in that group, one has to be integer. That is why all who passed, speak of a family or a house. By there passed the actors as Lia Gama, Maria Emília Correia, Isabel de Castro, José Pedro Gomes, Márcia Breia, for example. Later, Diogo Dória, José Manuel Mendes, Manuela de Freitas, José Wallenstein, Luísa Cruz, Monica Calle, António Fonseca, Adriano Luz, Miguel Guilherme, Rita Blanco. It is impossible to list them all. Joseph Smart, Rita Durão, Beatriz Batarda, Miguel Borges, Rita Loureiro, Ricardo Aibéo, Sofia Marques, Nuno Lopes.

Without making concessions to the fashions without giving up your style of making theatre and of the texts of the sayings almost in its entirety, even if it leads to shows of more than three hours, surviving criticism and crises, the Cornucopia was able, in the last 20 years, finally, an almost unanimity around it. Cintra received a series of awards: the Garrett (1991), the House of Press and the Golden Globe for picture of the theatre (1999), Almada (2000), the Person (2005). In 2014 the Festival de Teatro de Almada, paid tribute to him.

Luis Miguel Cintra, he withdrew from the stage, last year, won by Parkinson’s disease, by the flaws in the body and in memory. On the day of that farewell, he warned his audience: “we do Not see how, in the current situation, [the Cornucopia] may have the ability to overcome the economic difficulties that it has. We don’t know how it will last.” Now, we already know.