Cia. Hiato

The living experience of narratives that are peripheral to the “Odyssey” both challenges the fiction/reality and public/private dichotomies, and blurs the actor/spectator polarity. Based on the well-known story of a man who left his home and his heart to fight, ending up wandering for years while attempting to return home, Cia. Hiato invites the audience to take the place of the missing protagonist, Odysseus, and to sail through different islands. The seven actors unwind memories, doubts and dreams based on the characters and narratives from the Greek epic poem: Telemachus departure, Calypso’s rejection, Circe’s body, Athena’s strategic violence, Hestia’s fire and Penelope’s longing. A journey that is simultaneously intimate and magnificent; the ridicule of our everyday life meets the mythical strength of the stories they’re still trying to explain to us. Because once all is said and done one can be equally ordinary and mythical.


The very name the group chose, Hiato [gap], gives us a clue as to their artistic choices, and explains the ongoing research on new playwriting and scenic forms that question the “gap”, the ways in which reality is perceived, the gaps between experience and the language of perspectives that form its conscience, in other words, coming up with a unique and coherent “self”. The group’s performances arise from rather personal questioning: “How great is the distance between what I say and what you understand/want to understand from what I said? How large is the existing gap between my experience and language? To what extent am I able to express my experience?”. Companhia Hiato believes that turning these questions into a creative process is a way of sharing those uncertainties, more than answering them.