This Wednesday, the President of the Republic mourned the death of the director and actor Carlos Aviles, whom he praised for his “courage, enthusiasm, persistence and generosity,” believing that “he will remain a fundamental figure of a generation that changed the Portuguese theater.” .
Carlos Aviles died this Wednesday at the age of 88 from cardiopulmonary arrest in the Cascais Hospital in the Lisbon district. Dedicating his life to the theater, he was one of the founders of the Experimental Theater of Cascais.
In a message of condolence published on the official website of the President of the Republic on the Internet, the head of state considers that “Carlos Aviles will remain a fundamental figure of the generation that changed the Portuguese theater between the 1960s and 70s, and with continuity much later”, in which also included figures such as Joaquim Benite or Jorge Silva Melo.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa recalls that he had the pleasure of awarding Carlos Avilés in 2018 the insignia of Honorary Member of the Order of Merit on behalf of the Teatro Experimental Porto (TEP) “as President of the Republic and as his spectator, admirer and friend, in recognition of six decades of courage , enthusiasm, perseverance and generosity.”
“Debuting as an actor in the mid-1950s with the Rey Colazo – Robles Monteiro troupe, Carlos Aviles also worked at the Guilherme Cossula Theater in Lisbon, TEP in Porto or CITAC in Coimbra. At the Experimental Theater of Cascais, of which he was one of the founders in 1965, he proposed a non-conformist and daring theater with which the situation was unfavorable, bringing to the stage authors such as Lorca, Osborne, Arrabal, Gombrowicz or Genet,” says the head of state.
The President of the Republic emphasizes “in his subsequent career” the performance of “the functions of director of two national theaters, S. João and D. Maria II, as well as the founding of the Professional School of the Cascais Theater.” adding that this school came about through the “discovery and training of many young actors.”