The Portuguese company Mala Voadora and the American playwright Robert Schenkkan are joining forces once again for a new collaboration. In 2024, they premiered Cantar de Galo, a show in which the famous Galo de Barcelos tells his story, expresses dissatisfaction with it, and is confronted by Salazar. They enter into a debate about the nationalist strategies of the Estado Novo, and the Galo, by confronting Salazar with his own narrow-mindedness, comes out victorious. In addition to multiple performances across Portugal, the show was presented in New York as part of the Under the Radar festival, will be staged at the 2026 Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, and a world tour is in preparation.

While in Cantar de Galo the character of Salazar was brought to life using deepfake technology, with Jorge Andrade actually performing both roles, in the new project with Robert Schenkkan, technology will play a role within the narrative itself. The protagonist works as a motion capture model, he moves according to instructions, wearing a suit with sensors that track his body movements, which are then used to animate virtual characters realistically. In the studio, he performs as if he were a human puppet, lending his body’s actions to a famous character, Frankenstein.

To develop this project, Mala Voadora and Robert Schenkkan have already scheduled a residency in Silicon Valley for June 2025, where they will work both on the dramaturgy of the show and with a specialised team in motion capture technology for animation.

An actor, JORGE, arrives late to the studio. JORGE is a highly talented performer with classical training, now reduced to doing “body work” for an animation studio using motion capture technology. He is currently playing the monster FRANKENSTEIN in an experimental workshop, possibly for a new cinematic adaptation. Time and money are scarce. Everyone involved in the project is stressed. Jorge is also under enormous pressure outside the studio, not just due to his profound professional frustrations. He suspects that his wife is cheating on him and may be about to leave him. His growing use of alcohol and recreational drugs does little to help.

When JORGE puts on his Mo-Cap suit and begins working, he is directed vocally, like a “controlled puppet,” by the DIRECTOR, seated in the Control Room and speaking through the “God microphone.”

As JORGE starts the scene in which the “monster” kills Vítor’s wife, Isabel, out of revenge and sexual frustration, he begins to lose control, not only of his emotions but also of his mind. Paranoia grows, and JORGE starts to suspect that the DIRECTOR is the man sleeping with his wife. Reality and illusion blur. Is he an actor portraying a monster, or a monster portraying an actor? Is his wife actually planning to run away with the DIRECTOR, or has JORGE already dealt brutally with her infidelity? His movements and emotions are being “captured” and “transformed” into something brutal and terrifying. His very humanity is under attack, and JORGE struggles against technological and very real demons.