In Porto, during a press rehearsal for one of the shows included in the “RP 80” program celebrating Ricardo Pais’s 80th birthday, the former director of TNSJ stated that, although Vítor Hugo Pontes’s work is “very interesting and good,” the process for a Public Enterprise Entity (EPE) is “dubious.”
“I think the contests are immensely foolish. It is a false democratic gesture to invite people from abroad to earn the pittance offered here,” he remarked.
According to Ricardo Pais, the current system allows the State to shirk the responsibility of understanding how to choose a good director with expert insight.
“The choice should be pre-selected; not just anyone should be able to come. This leads to the very convenient situation during the ‘costista dictatorship’ where we believe we are being immensely democratic because we open a contest,” he argued.
For the director, this practice “makes no sense,” particularly in “an institution that spent years trying to be autonomous, with its own theater ways.”
The former TNSJ director also criticized what he sees as an “outrageous” hit on previous leaders of the theater, referring to the case of the president of TNSJ’s board of directors, Pedro Sobrado.
“Of course, when things go wrong, those in charge who are not to blame take the hit, like the scandalous hit Pedro Sobrado recently took,” he criticized.
Choreographer and director Victor Hugo Pontes was selected in the international competition launched in April to assume the role of artistic director of TNSJ for the 2025/2028 term, following the withdrawal of the previously selected candidate, director Tiago Guedes, who cited “unavoidable professional commitments in 2025 that were incompatible with the exercise of the duties for which he was designated.”
