“JERUSALEM HEAVEN” by Gonçalo M. Tavares

From Saturday 14th of September to Wednesday 2nd of October 2013, the novel “Jerusalem” written by the award-winning Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares will be presented at MCF’s specially configured underground level. The theatrical adaptation is conceived by Vana Pefani and Yannis Karkanevatos and the play is directed by Vana Pefani.

The play is an amalgam of raw and poetic elements and it verifies the statement that everyone is potentially both an executioner and a victim. Hence, everyone can receive or cause violence at any time. The positions of the tormented and torturers are blurred.

About the Performance:
The housewife, inmate for years in a psychiatric clinic. The psychiatrist, a person that aspires to design a graph that is going to depict the distribution of violence through the centuries. The lover of the housewife during their joint residence in the clinic. The doctor that occupies an administrative position. The problematic politician. A kid with disabilities. The veteran that is always armed and terrified and a prostitute. Eight lonely people at a particular moment of a very special day. Eight characters that wander alone on Earth till the coordination of their steps and the detuning of their worlds.

History, psychiatry and schizophrenia. These are the axes of a contemporary film-noir with a title-trap. Jerusalem is not the city where the story is evolving. Jerusalem is the city-ghost that haunts the minds of the characters.

Gonçalo M. Tavares
Gonçalo M. Tavares was born in 1970. In 2001 (December), his first novel is published. He has won the José Saramago prize, the LER/ Millenium-BCP prize and the Telecom Literature Award 2007 in Portugal and Brazil. His novel ‘Jerusalem’ has won the Portugal Literature Award (Brazil). His books has inspired artistic works, theatrical adaptations etc. His novels have been published in more than 20 countries. José Saramago said that Tavares will be the next Nobel Literature for Portugal.