Today was made tragic by bad news from Mozambique: a close relative of one of the actors had passed away.
His reaction, throwing himself onto the ground shouting and crying, chilled the blood in our veins! And the magic stopped.
In Mozambican tradition, the oldest in the group dries the tears of the person who suffered the loss, I believe it’s a gesture that helps the person feel the presence of a family nearby, the oldest of the group always represents wisdom, authority.

We sat on the stairs, waiting to know if he wanted a plane ticket to return home, or anything else…

The second piece of news was an illness. Adelino (junior) had a headache, sore joints, sore stomach and kidneys. He felt malaria coming on.

Malaria?!? Here, now?!?

Fortunately the test (and yes, we do have a test kit for malaria), gave a negative result and after a teleconference visit with the Eni Foundation doctors in Mozambique we agreed that it was something caused by the air conditioning in the planes and airports. Adelino isn’t used to air conditioning, maybe he was sweating and caught a chill. Rest and plenty of liquids. But thank God it wasn’t malaria!!!

We only managed to rehearse in the afternoon, and finally, some good news! It’s obvious that during the pause between the two training sessions the Mozambicans studied, and understood, the script and the story, and they rehearsed.

Young Safina, who during the first session had some difficulty keeping up with the other actors because of reading problems, was in full flow, she didn’t miss a line and on the stage she emanated self-confidence and smiles.

Incredible! Well done!

The movements have to be worked on, the positions of the actors during the various scenes, on what to do while they are in a scene but not acting.

This is a very important detail! If you are miming, for example, that you are looking after an ill person and one of the actors moves forward and speaks to the audience, you have to continue moving, but being extremely careful not to draw attention to yourself by distracting the public, but you still have to continue

It’s not that easy.

Another thing that isn’t simple is being on the stage and having to pretend that you don’t hear what the other actors are saying. You have to look elsewhere, simulate distraction, but always pay attention to the lines because it’ll soon be your turn to speak!

These are aspects that the non-professional actors of Palma have never had to think about when preparing their performances. In addition, the piece is long and the actors can’t run out of energy before the end, above all because the final scene is the most articulated (obviously!).

You need to learn to dose enthusiasm and voice to reach the end.

Luckily, we reached the end of this day.