Review: Catarina et la beauté de tuer des fascistes
Catarina et la beauté de tuer des fascistes, de Tiago Rodrigues, avec Antonio Afonso parra, Antonio Fonseca, Beatriz Maia, Carolina Passos Sousa, Isabel Abreu, Marco Mendonça, Romeu Costa et Rui M. Silva au Téatro Piccolo Arsenale à Venise, le 29 juin 2023. ©Joseph Banderet
The space of fiction, in which I still believe as a theatre artist, allows certain things that are not possible in politics. For example, this completely absurd and truly terrible question: should we kill the fascist or not? Only theatre can create a context in which it exists.
Tiago Rodrigues
After the brilliant By Heart (2015) and the sublime Antony and Cleopatra (2017), Tiago Rodrigues and his eight high-flying performers invite the FTA audience to an invigorating show. Catarina et la beauté de tuer des fascistes is a political agora where ideologies and world views collide in a family setting.
We see a large dinner table, a large family, a small cabin where French and English subtitles are projected and a few chairs. The performers look at us, fixating us with their stares at the start of this rollercoaster, all dressed in dark black dresses. It makes me think of old times, traditions, and strong family structures.
This family slowly but surely reveals its story to us over a good two hours.
And what a story it is!
The family tradition: once a year, they kill a fascist.
And then they bury the fascist on the land, planting a tree to mark the killing.
The family celebrates in advance with the preparation of a family meal. For 70 years, they have honoured the memory of Catarina Eufémia, an agricultural worker brutally murdered under the Salazar dictatorship. Eufémia received neither any support, nor acknowledgement.
Gathered in the bucolic Portuguese countryside, the clan is delighted to initiate one of its younger sisters into this ritual. Every member of this family is called Catarina and the chosen Catarina is young, idealistic, and she wavers between following family traditions and following her own mindset on this task.
A dilemma.
She hesitates to shoot the fascist kidnapped for the yearly occasion.
She wonders if killing is not a courageous act of resistance but a crime?
The ending, dear readers, I can’t reveal. It’s really something to see for yourself, but I promise you, this show takes you in an unexpected, intense direction, and it resonates long after the tour de force is over!
Even though there is an immense amount of intensity and some violence, there are enough moments were the humour lets us laugh out loud. The direction is clear and crisp. The comedians make this story alive on the multifunctional set. Music has a bizarre role in this play. In short, there is so much to discover and witness, go see it, it is not to be missed!
Catarina et la beauté de tuer des fascistes is part of the FTA at the Théâtre Duceppe on May 26-28. Tickets HERE.
