Luiz Päetow

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Päetow in 2007 backstage photoshoot

Luiz Päetow (born 1979) is a Brazilian theatre director, actor, playwright and light designer. He researches the essence of the actor's body, voice and memory. Focused on the freedom and radicality of expressions, he's creating an extremely distinctive language with his one-man shows, such as the pitch-dark Abracadabra and also performing groundbreaking authors: Gertrude Stein, Georg Büchner, Samuel Beckett, Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst and [[::fr::Jean-Luc Lagarce|Jean-Luc Lagarce]]. He gained worldwide recognition, unexpectedly through YouTube, with his starring role in the first Brazilian production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis.

Biography

Päetow started his theatrical career, at age 11, taking part in several productions of the British Council Theatre Group in São Paulo, including plays by William Shakespeare, Federico Garcia Lorca, Nelson Rodrigues and most notably musicals by Cole Porter with the visionary guest director Nancy Diuguid. Later, he entered the São Paulo Conservatory for Dramatic Arts and acted in Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade, Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, Arnold Wesker's The Kitchen, Bertolt Brecht's The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent.

Between 1996 and 2001, he became a central player for CPT (the renowned Centre for Theatre Research led by Antunes Filho, considered as the greatest Brazilian theatre director since the 1970s). During this period, Päetow created the dramatic cycle Prêt-à-Porter which won the Theatre Shell Award, the most important Brazilian prize in the field. For this specific project, he directed, wrote and starred in five plays: Passengers, Under the Bridge, No Concert, Hours of Punishment and Wings of the Shadow. In 1998, he worked as assistant director to Daniela Thomas on Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, starring Fernanda Montenegro (mostly recognized for her leading role in Central Station, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress). In 1999, he co-directed The Trojan Fragments which received the Theatre Shell Award and the Art Critics' Association Prize. This production had its world-premiere at the Istanbul International Theatre Festival and was also presented at the second Theatre Olympics in Shizuoka, where Päetow notably attended the meeting of the International Committee of TO with five of its founding members: Tadashi Suzuki, Robert Wilson, Yuri Lyubimov, Nuria Espert and Theodoros Terzopoulos. At this event, they discussed the prognostics for the 21st century theatre. In 2000, Päetow debuted as an opera director with Henry Purcell's The Fairy-Queen.

In 2003, he played, to significant praise, the lead in the first Brazilian production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis. After this, he presented, at the Volksbühne, the marathon of five plays Rebellion in the Backlands created by legendary Brazilian director Zé Celso. In 2006, Päetow created

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