Lano Kaj Neĝo * focuses on Ferreira de Castro's ‘A Lã e a Neve’ (The Wool and the Snow), a symbol of the social and cultural identity of the Beira Interior region, as well as a reference in national literature. I was interested in finding a vehicle that served the local context and at the same time projected the questions and yearnings of our humanity. The play follows Horácio's journey from being a shepherd in Manteigas, hoping one day to be able to afford the house he dreams of living in with his family, to becoming a weaver in a factory in Covilhã and confronting the harsh reality of the working class. Set in the 1940s, during the period of the Second World War and with the dictatorship in Portugal as a backdrop, it looks at the isolated mountains and the precarious conditions in which those mountain dwellers live, and looks at the heyday of the industrial and textile world in Covilhã where labour becomes an important social demand. Ferreira de Castro brings us face to face with the incessant search of men and women for better living conditions, hoping that one day that ‘new world’ to which everyone aspires will arrive.

*A Lã e a Neve (The Wool and the Snow), in Esperanto. Esperanto is mentioned in the work through an emblematic character who is central to the narrative, Marreta, who represents the search for progressive ideals that Ferreira Castro subliminally inserts. Esperanto is an artificial language created as an attempt to project a universal language.