What does it mean to be a man? Gender identities are stripped of all pretension in this brave, tender and humorous piece that trans creator Gaya de Medeiros is bringing to TNT. Constructed from extraordinary physical, emotional and theatrical sensitivity, this performance prioritises the most intense desire to communicate with another human being, and to do so without prejudice or abuse of power.

Since she was never able to communicate that way with her father, who ended up incarnating the image of a corseted, unsatisfied masculinity, Gaya uses the power of theatre to propose a game to the audience. They are asked to sit with her in silence and take on the fictional role of being her interlocutor. As the conversation advances, words, archetypes and feelings become intertwined around the idea of masculinity, while we play more and more with the possibilities of fantasy and humour that the stage offers.

Gender is a theatrical construct, thanks to which we can play with it within a piece that Gaya is quick to point out is a ‘safe space’ where we can say and think things that would be much harder to say or think elsewhere. But not everyone is here, and this pain is also manifested in Pai para jantar, which is essentially the staging of an act of collective mourning in honour of the repressed, the wounded, and the murdered. As in other pieces in this edition, grief does not give way to regret, but instead translates into a genuine desire to connect and understand, to form a community and to erase the barriers that separate us.

Pai para jantar is also, to a certain extent, a performative lecture, where our presence is essential in order for what needs to happen to happen. And, to another extent, it is a percussion concert and a choreographic piece, with Pedro Melo Alves playing at being a foley artist with a drum-kit. And it’s also a dinner that we’ve prepared for our father, hoping he’ll come to talk openly, face to face. Let’s hope he comes.