Portuguese play about killing fascists keeps sparking unrest in theatres across Europe

A play by Portuguese writer Tiago Rodrigues has been triggering dramatic audience reactions across Europe for several years, and will next month reach London's National Theatre. Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists premiered in Guimarães in September 2020 and has since been performed roughly 200 times, provoking jeering, singing, walkouts and even attempted stage invasions.

In February, a performance at Schauspielhaus theatre in Bochum, Germany, made international headlines after spectators whistled and jeered at an actor playing a far-right politician, an orange was thrown at him, and two audience members climbed on stage trying to pull him off. Rodrigues says he was not surprised by the incident, noting that such reactions are typical: in Portugal, audiences have sung the revolutionary anthem Grândola, Vila Morena; in Italy, Bella Ciao; in Austria, people walked out; and attempts to storm the stage occurred in Lisbon, Paris, Marseille and Montreal. In Rome, the local branch of Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party protested the production.

The play centres on a family that ritually kills a kidnapped fascist each year to avenge the 1954 killing of harvester Catarina Eufémia by Salazar's regime. This year, family member Sara doubts the morality of the ritual, and in the play's final act the freed fascist delivers an uninterrupted victory speech echoing contemporary far-right rhetoric.

Rodrigues, artistic director of the Avignon festival since 2022, says his own sympathies lie with Sara's belief that the far right must be opposed through democratic means, though he acknowledges history has seen moments when violence against fascism was considered legitimate, citing armed resistance to Nazi occupation.

He wrote the final monologue during rehearsals, wanting to avoid a simplistic, morally comfortable ending; some cast members reportedly cried or considered leaving the production after first encountering it. While condemning physical attacks on performers, Rodrigues does not consider it wrong for audiences to shout down the fascist speech.

The playwright began developing the piece after André Ventura became, in 2019, the first far-right politician elected to Portugal's parliament since the Salazar dictatorship. Ventura's party, Chega, is now Portugal's second-largest, and he placed second in a recent presidential runoff.