Robert Wilson pays tribute to one of the most original figures of 20th-century Modernism, in a performance that approaches Fernando Pessoa’s poetry as a search and a deep questioning of language as existence. “His creativity was expressed through the cult of and the liberation from the multiple selves that existed in his head. They were not pseudonyms. They were him, but they were also not him. Pessoa called them heteronyms. They were his allies in a great adventure, the search for the freed voice of poetry”, writes Darryl Pinckney, who is responsible for the dramaturgy.

PESSOA – Since I’ve been me, which premiered in May 2024 at Teatro della Pergola, in Florence, Italy, evokes the various atmospheres in the works of Pessoa, their fluidity of humour, meditative or comical, rational or anarchic. A life shared with heteronymous personalities such as Alexander Search, Bernardo Soares, Vicente Guedes, Alberto Caeiro, Álvaro de Campos or Ricardo Reis. “Wilson’s freedom of imagery equates to those joyful and serious sceptics of metaphysics. The director presents Pessoa and his circle as escapists from traditional philosophical concepts,” proceeds Pinckney. “Wilson is as alert as Pessoa to the reality of dreams and the lack of confidence in the concrete. Emotions and sensations are mysteries. The strength of Pessoa’s poetic imagination lies in his desire to write and to continue to write against doubt and in his extraordinary ability to do so in language after language. To capture the essence of the relationship between the human soul and the physical world is a piece of music he questions.”