La Distance

Tiago Rodrigues

  • A scene from <La Distance>. On a dark stage, a woman in a white shirt and a man in a brown jacket sit back to back. The woman raises one hand to shoulder height and turns her head to the side, while the man looks straight ahead. Bare dry branches and a large tree stump lie across the stage in front of them, and a red rock stands at the right.
  • A scene from <La Distance>. On a dark stage, a woman in a white shirt and white trousers with an orange cloth around her waist leans forward on top of a red rock at the upper right, both hands planted on the rock as she looks down. Below her, a man in a brown jacket and trousers lies back against a large tree stump with one arm stretched upward. A bare, dry branch stands at the left.
  • A scene from <La Distance>. A red rock taller than a person stands at the center of the stage, with a man in a brown jacket and grey trousers standing to its left, facing front. Behind the rock to the right, a leafless white branch spreads out, and beneath it a woman in white sits curled inside a transparent glass dome. A small wooden box holding a turntable and books sits on the floor at the left.
  • A scene from <La Distance>. On a round stage washed in blue light, a man in brown clothing stands alone at the left with his head bowed. Small photographs are scattered across the floor around him. At the right of the stage stand a red rock and a leafless tree, with a small lit wooden box between them.
  • A scene from <La Distance>. Only the circular stage floor is lit in the surrounding darkness. A woman in white stands on a red rock at the left with both arms spread wide, while a man in brown clothing stands at the right with his head bowed. Between them lie a large uprooted tree stump and dry branches, and a transparent glass sphere holding a miniature landscape rests at the lower left.

© Christophe Raynaud de Lage_Festival d'Avignon

  • Director Tiago Rodrigues
  • Genre Theater
  • Date 10.8.Thu 7:30pm 10.9.Fri 3pm 10.10.Sat 3pm
  • Language French
  • Accessibility Korean Subtitles, English Subtitles
  • Rating 13 and over
  • Venue Arko Arts Theater Grand Theater
  • Duration 85 min.
  • Premiere Creation Festival d’Avignon 2025
  • Tickets R 65,000 won S 40,000 won

 

Introduction

2077, While humanity struggles to survive, plagued by economic precariousness and the consequences of climate change, part of the population lives in exile on Mars. Back on Earth, a father strives to maintain a relationship with his daughter who has gone to the Red Planet.

<La Distance> is a miniature lost in the vastness of the cosmos. Through this dystopian yet not-improbable scenario, Tiago Rodrigues explores the consequences of our choices as much as the possibility of communication between generations. The artist sets two worlds face to face and imagines their dialogue in orbit as a series of very, very, very long-distance calls. The actors are in an interplanetary setup in rotation, like two celestial bodies stuck in their respective orbits, alternatively coming closer and drifting apart.

Director
Portrait of director Tiago Rodrigues. Standing side-on against a grey concrete wall in a navy hooded jacket, he looks toward the camera with a faint smile. He has short dark hair and a beard.

Ⓒ Christophe Raynaud de Lage

Tiago Rodrigues

The first ambition of Portuguese actor Tiago Rodrigues is to play with people who'd want to come together and invent shows. His encounter with the tg STAN in 1997, when he was but 20, definitively confirmed his attachment to the absence of hierarchy in a creative group. The freedom of performance and decision given him then would forever influence his future shows. Tiago Rodrigues thus found himself repeatedly and early in his career in a position of instigator, and little by little came to direct and write projects he “stumbled upon.” In parallel to that, he also wrote screenplays, articles, poems, prefaces, op-eds, etc.

In 2003, he co-founded with Magda Bizarro the company Mundo Perfeito, with which he created many shows without settling down in any specific location, becoming the guest of many national and international institutions. In France, he notably performed his Portuguese version of Shakespeare's <Antony and Cleopatra> at the Festival d'Avignon in 2015. <By Heart> is presented in 2014 at the Théâtre de la Bastille, which later invites him to lead an “occupation” of the theater during two months in spring 2016, during which he created <Bovary>. Director of the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II in Lisbon from 2015 to 2021, Tiago Rodrigues nevertheless continues to create shows using the limited means he has appropriated as his own artistic syntax. On a larger scale, he has become a builder of bridges between cities and countries, at once host and advocate of a living theatre.

Following his appointment in July 2021 whilst he was presenting Chekhov's <The Cherry Orchard> in the Cour d'honneur of the palais des Papes, he takes over the direction of the Festival d'Avignon in September 2022. A festival he knows well, having presented <Antony and Cleopatra> there in 2015, <Sopro> in 2017, <The Cherry Orchard> in 2021, <By Heart> and <Dans la mesure de l’impossible> in 2023 and <The Distance> in 2025.

Credits
  • WithAlison Dechamps, Admama Diop
  • Text and directionTiago Rodrigues
  • TranslationThomas Resendes
  • Translation for the surtitlesDaniel Hahn (English)
  • ScenographyFernando Ribeiro
  • CostumesJosé António Tenente
  • LightingRui Monteiro
  • Music and soundPedro Costa
  • Artistic collaborationSophie Bricaire
  • Assistant directorAndré Pato
  • Assistant trainee directorThomas Medioni
  • ProductionFestival d’Avignon
  • CoproductionTeatro stabile di Napoli Teatro Nazionale (Naples), Onassis Stegi (Athènes), La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand Scène nationale, Divadlo International Theatre Festival (Plzeň), Le Volcan Scène nationale du Havre, Teatre Lliure (Barcelone), Centro Dramatico Nacional (Madrid), Malakoff Scène nationale Théâtre 71, Culturgest (Lisbonne), De Singel (Anvers), Équinoxe Scène nationale de Châteauroux, Points communs Nouvelle Scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise / Val d’Oise, Piccolo Teatro di Milano Teatro d’Europa (Milan), Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg Scène européenne, NTCH Taiwan National Theatre and Concert Hall, Les Célestins Théâtre de Lyon, Théâtre du Bois de l’Aune (Aix-en-Provence), Théâtre de Grasse Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national Art & Création, Scènes et Cinés Scène conventionnée d’intérêt national Art en territoire (Istres), Le Bateau Feu Scène nationale de Dunkerque, Plovdiv Drama Theatre, Malta Festival (Poznan), Espace 1789 (Saint-Ouen)
  • With the support ofthe integration programme of the École du TNB - Théâtre national de Bretagne (Rennes) and for the 79th edition of the Festival d'Avignon: Spedidam
  • Set constructionAteliers du Festival d'Avignon
  • ResidencyLa FabricA du Festival d’Avignon
  • AcknowledgementsMarie Azevedo, doctoral researcher in planetary sciences at the University of Bern and member of the CaSSIS team for the ExoMars mission, Magda Bizarro, Beatriz Rodrigues, the Festival d’Avignon teams, Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe (Paris). The show includes the song “Sonhos” by Caetano Veloso.
  • PremiereThe show premiered on July 7, 2025, at L'Autre Scène du Grand Avignon (Vedène), as part of the 79th Festival d’Avignon
Tiago Rodrigues

  • the intensity of a father’s grief in a show that does not go around in circles
    – Le Monde, Joëlle Gayot
  • Through their exchange, the work offers a powerful reflection on filial love and the evolution of our contemporary society.
    – Télérama, Fabienne Pascaud