Two playwrights re-tell history through a different lens. One imagines the preoccupations of the dictator in his hours of insomnia. The other sees a real event from the point of view of its unacknowledged heroine.
In A Reputation we are in Lisbon, 1966. The ageing dictator Antonio Oliveira Salazar has governed this small European country with an iron hand for nearly 40 years. A devout and intensely private man, he contemplates his legacy of a secure and solvent nation with pride. But time passes, and there is the different matter of how history will treat him – of his reputation. And today he has a visitor, the one person he can trust. A Reputation is written by Susannah Finzi and translated into Portuguese (for the Lisbon production in 2024) by Armando Nascimento Rosa. Directed by Almiro Andrade.
Departure–The Woman Without Fear tells the real-life story of Humberto Delgado, diplomat and politician, and leader of an ill-fated attempt to overthrow the Portuguese dictator Salazar. The story is told through the eyes of Arajaryr Campos, his secretary and lover. Leaving her small daughter behind in Brazil, Arajaryr was assassinated together with Delgado in 1965 in Villanueva del Fresno, Spain by the secret police of Prime Minister Salazar. Departure is written by Armando Nascimento Rosa and translated into English by Susannah Finzi. Directed by Mariana Aristizábal Pardo.
PLEASE NOTE: Departure will be performed script in hand as a rehearsed reading.
These plays are a work of fiction. All portrayals, organisations, events and incidents are entirely fictional and invented for and occurring in this work. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) or actual entities or events is coincidental.
Certain performances are followed by a fado concert by Armando Nascimento Rosa or a panel discussion with both writers.