“Insofar as the Impossible” and “Catarina” show how much Rodrigues’s work has gained in ambition over the years. His rise to prominence in France in the 2010s came via intimate, confessional works, like 2013’s “By Heart,” in which he shared the life of his grandmother and asked audience members to memorize a poem, and 2017’s “Sopro,” which starred the longtime prompter of the theater Rodrigues directed in Lisbon until recently, the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II.
There are real stories at the heart of “Insofar as the Impossible,” too. The script of this production, at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, wove together excerpts from 30 or so interviews that Rodrigues and his team conducted with humanitarian workers from the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders.
It fits into a style of documentary theater that has become popular in recent years. While French directors like Didier Ruiz have brought interviewees to the stage, however, Rodrigues has entrusted their words to four actors, who speak in a mix of French, English and Portuguese, in keeping with Rodrigues’s love of multilingualism. (He announced recently that under his direction, there would be a special focus on a different language every year at the Avignon Festival, starting with English in 2023.)
Throughout, the geographical areas that humanitarian workers travel to — to provide relief from war, disasters or other emergencies — are referred to as “the Impossible,” and the comfortable Western homes they leave behind are “the Possible.” It means the audience can’t connect the anecdotes with what they may know of the region or the conflict; instead, we are invited to consider how violence, inhumanity — and dignity, too — manifest regardless of culture.
Wisely, given the gut-punching nature of many scenes, Rodrigues treads lightly as director. The sets stop at a large white cloth that is slowly pulled above the stage. Many of the situations described are too harrowing to summarize neatly; suffice to say that, while humanitarian workers generally choose their line of work out of a desire to do good, “doing good” turns out to be a lot more complicated than it seems.
Making a virtuous contribution is also what drives the family at the heart of “Catarina,” a work of fiction Rodrigues created with a Portuguese cast. To this family, however, that means capturing a fascist each year, following a tradition passed down by a female relative who, in the 1950s, avenged the death of her friend Catarina under Portugal’s military dictatorship. Per her wish, all her descendants are called Catarina, regardless of gender, and in Rodrigues’s engaging production, wear long dresses and aprons.
