QUINTA
ONE HOUSE

The curtain rises and on stage we see a well maintained garden with an existing two-storey building surrounded by trees. The remains of an old theatre, out-of-style, forgotten by the public. There are no actors either. Only the old set remains, ruined by the consuming time. Dispensable scenery that will be demolished to give way to the new theatre season. That is required by a demanding audience who urges novelty in the theatre of this golf residential resort in Algarve, Portugal. The curtain comes down.

The curtain rises again and a new set is on stage, ready for the show. A modern script, but with a classical display. It probably reminds of black and white performances from the 20’s and 30’s. It probably should be a cinema in this case, but we are still talking about a theatre.

This playhouse has a frontal stage, facing the world, framed by a proscenium frame of concrete beams and columns. White curtains protect actors from prying eyes in the terrace and in the largely glazed and transparent interiors.

Life on stage is amazing and actors also want to enjoy their views. They open the curtains and love being at the terrace and at the cantilevered swimming pool. Privileged viewpoints to admire the landscape and the passing seasons, while playing the comedy of their life.

The access, theatrical, happens through a double ramp. One of them goes up the stage from the ground floor; the other, functional, leads to the underground, flanked by a rhetorical waterfall dropping from the swimming pool on the stage. The stage machinery is allocated in that underground, where actors’ lives also move behind scenes, between gym and spa steams and outflows from the wine cellar.

The stage, on the floating ground floor, sets the main pieces of the scenery: kitchen, living room, dining room, and two en-suite bedrooms. An elevated floor, leaning over the living room, accommodates the master bedroom and other two bedrooms dedicated to Jack and Jill, the younger artists of the play.

In the meantime, life continues on stage, the show must go on, impassive to what happens beyond the theatre, beyond the artificial horizon of the swimming pool, beyond the curtain. At the end of the day, it goes down to hide the play, still going on only for the appointed actors remaining on the inside.