CANCELLATION 9 MAY
Due to the EGEAC Workers’ General Strike, Teatro São Luiz informs that the show A Doll’s House this Friday, May 9 is cancelled and that the ticket office is closed.
Tickets are not valid for other sessions.
Next shows:
A Doll’s House, Plexus Polaire: Saturday 10 May at 4pm and 8pm
You can exchange tickets from 10 May for another date, subject to the limit of available seats, or request a refund until 25 May in person at the theatre’s box office and by contacting: bilheteira@teatrosaoluiz.pt and 21 325 7651/20.
In the case of online purchase, please contact infoblueticket3@blueticket.pt
The 25th edition of FIMFA opens at the São Luiz Municipal Theatre with a show inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House by renowned director Yngvild Aspeli, whose masterpiece Moby Dick wowed audiences at the opening of FIMFA Lx21. The Plexus Polaire company, known for its stagings with human-sized puppets, returns to FIMFA to take us on a virtuoso mix of staging and theatrical illusion, acclaimed by critics.
The characters are portrayed by hyper-realistic puppets and animated objects to create dialogue and tension. The human-sized puppets are manipulated on sight in an immersive device, where visual theatre, visual arts and music interact with each other, becoming ideal metaphors for a society of pretence, while Nora’s living room gradually fills with curious and frightening creatures. We plunge into a world on the edge of the fantastic, where the heroine is a prisoner of her own web of lies, woven over the years, and where every visual and auditory element helps to illustrate Nora’s quest for freedom and emancipation.
Yngvild Aspeli plays Nora, a housewife who becomes aware of the make-believe world in which she lives, and decides to leave her husband and children to free herself from her domestic and social ties. Yngvild has developed a unique and impressive work of puppetry creation at the crossroads of different disciplines. She is one of the world’s leading figures in puppetry, with her extraordinary scenic proposals for large-scale productions. In Uma Casa de Bonecas, he offers us a very personal reading of this great classic of Norwegian literature, and transforms it into a unique sensory experience by combining puppet theatre, dance, voice and images, transcending conventions to touch the deepest emotions.
A disturbing mix of actors and puppets, birds and hybrid bodies, illusion and reality, plunges the audience into the centre of the action, in a play of perspectives that amplifies the dramatic tension.
A show that haunts, enchants and releases old spectres.
“The heart of the play is the relationship between the human-sized puppets, slightly hyper-realistic as is always the case with Yngvild Aspeli, and the actors. The interaction between them is virtuoso and fascinating (…).
And then there are the spiders. Initially tiny and discreet, they become huge and invasive throughout the show, evoking the key scene of the play, the one in which Nora experiences a kind of liberating trance, dancing the tarantella. We will treasure the mythological battle between Nora, magnificently embodied by Yngvild Aspeli herself, and the beast with tentacled legs. An extremely powerful spectacle.” – Fabienne Darge, Le Monde
“Norwegian puppeteer and director Yngvild Aspeli boldly revisits Ibsen’s masterpiece. The life-size puppets she brings to life are breathtakingly expressive.”
– Libération
“An incredibly powerful show that was unanimously acclaimed.” – Stéphane Capron, France Inter
“Her staging (…) is a marvel (…). It’s as if Nora, beyond her time, had never spoken to us so directly about her burning soul, her sufferings, her struggles and her painful journey towards emancipation. Bravo!” – Emmanuelle Bouchez, Télérama
“An incredibly powerful show that was unanimously acclaimed.” – Stéphane Capron, France Inter
“A powerful work, supported by a breathtaking visual and sound score (…). Plastically and aesthetically, the show is extremely good, thanks to the quality of the images (from the apparitions to the choreographic fluidity) and the performances of Yngvild Aspeli and Viktor Lukawski. They are as convincing in their manipulation as they are in their interpretation. We’re not ready to leave this Doll’s House.”
– Laura Plas, Les Trois Coups
BIO
The director, actress and puppeteer Yngvild Aspeli was born in Norway and is the artistic director of the Plexus Polaire company. She develops a visual universe that brings the deepest and most hidden feelings to life, combining softness and cruelty. Human-sized puppets are at the centre of her work, but the relationship between the actor-manipulator and the puppet, music, light and video all play a part in creating a broad language that serves and communicates the story.
She trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris (2003-2005), and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette (ESNAM) in Charleville-Mézières (2005-2008).
She founded the company Plexus Polaire in 2008, which brings together a strong team with several years of collaboration, and new people who join the company depending on the creations. Within Plexus Polaire she has created Signaux (2011), Opéra Opaque (2013), Cendres (2014), Chambre Noire (2017), Moby Dick (2020). Dracula – Lucy’s Dream (2021), A Doll’s House (2023) and Trust me for a while (2025). Many of his shows have been great successes at FIMFA, such as Chambre Noire or Moby Dick, presented in 2021 at the D. Maria II National Theatre. Her major productions continue to tour internationally all over the world.
Yngvild is currently an associate artist at CDN Dijon-Bourgogne. Since 2022 she has also been artistic director of Figurteatret i Nordland (Nordland Visual Theatre) in Stamsund, Norway.
