Ahead of this striking and physically charged production, we spoke with director and performer Nicolás Pérez Costa about the delicate balance between control and risk on stage. Marquis de Sade, an Uncomfortable Evening plays at Etcetera Theatre on 16th April. Tickets are available here.
How do you create a sense of danger while still maintaining control as a performer?
For me, danger on stage is not chaos — it’s precision pushed to its limit. What creates danger is the feeling that something could break at any moment, but underneath that, there is a very clear structure. I work from the body. When the body is fully committed to an action — with urgency, with necessity — the audience perceives risk. But that risk is built on a score of actions. I know exactly what I’m doing, even if it feels like I don’t. So the control is in the structure, and the danger is in how far I’m willing to go inside that structure. The performer must be on the edge, but never outside of it.
How has your training and teaching shaped the way you approach this role?
Everything I do as a performer comes from my work as a teacher — and vice versa.
Over the years, I’ve developed a way of working where the actor is not interpreting ideas, but generating them through action. I don’t start from psychology; I start from the body in motion. Teaching has forced me to understand what actually works. When you have to explain something to others, you strip away the unnecessary. What remains is essential: action, repetition, urgency. So in this role, I’m not trying to “play” something. I’m building a sequence of actions that produces meaning. The emotion appears as a consequence, not as a goal.
How do you guide spectators from observation into participation without breaking trust?
The key is respect.
I never force the audience to participate — I invite them. And that invitation comes from the level of truth in what’s happening on stage. When the performer is fully committed, the spectator starts to feel involved without being asked. Then, if I bring them closer — physically or emotionally — it doesn’t feel invasive, it feels inevitable.Trust is built through consistency. The audience understands the rules of the world we’re creating. Once they trust that, they’re willing to go further with you.
What has changed in this production as it has travelled from Buenos Aires to Madrid and now London?
The essence hasn’t changed, but the listening has. Each city has a different rhythm, a different relationship with the body, with language, with provocation. Buenos Aires is very direct, Madrid has a certain resistance that you have to break, and London is extremely precise — the audience reads everything.
So the work has become sharper. I’ve had to refine the timing, the clarity of the actions, the precision of the score.
It’s the same piece, but more distilled. Less explanation, more presence.
How do you rehearse intensity without exhausting or desensitising yourself as a performer?
Intensity is not about doing more — it’s about doing with necessity. If you rehearse from emotion, you burn out. If you rehearse from action, you can repeat it endlessly without losing truth. I work with what I call “states of alert.” The body is ready, activated, but not destroyed. I don’t need to reach the maximum every time — I need to build the path to it.
Also, repetition is key. Through repetition, the body learns how to arrive at intensity without forcing it. And that allows you to preserve yourself while still going very far in performance.