NIF24 - TIAGO RODRIGUES "CATARINA AND THE BEAUTY OF KILLING FASCISTS"

More about the event:

The work

The play features the members of a family in southern Portugal who have the paradoxical tradition, once a year, of abandoning their normal lives to kill a fascist. Two performances will be given on 10 and 11 December 2024 (20:30.), at the Nicosia Municipal Theatre.

Tiago Rodrigues' play and performance deals with heavy political issues such as, what are the best means to deal with the fascist forces on the rise in a democracy? Is it morally acceptable to "do evil to do good", which is the motto of the family? Is there a place for violence in the struggle for a better world? Can we break the rules of democracy when we seek better ways to defend it? All of this could easily turn into caricatures, yet Rodrigues refuses to give the audience an easy way out of these moral dilemmas and certainly does not shy away from showing us what he means by fascism.

Tiago Rodrigues

Portuguese actor Tiago Rodrigues developed his art as an actor and playwright in Belgium (theatre organization To Stan) at the age of 20. He then founded the company Mundo Perfeito with Magda Bizarro in 2003. As a guest at many national and international theatre organizations he directed many performances. From 2015 to 2021 he was director of Teatro Nacional D. Maria II in Lisbon. In September 2022 he became Director of the Avignon Festival, on whose stages he directed several plays including Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" (2021), "By heart" (2023), "Hecuba, not Hecuba" (2024). His last one was also presented at the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus (2024).

Awards

"Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists" won the UBU 2023 Best Foreign Performance Award in Italy, the Best Foreign Performance Award from the 2023 Critics' Union in France and the Best Foreign Actress Award from the Virginia Reiter Premio for Beatriz Maïa, in the role of Catarina. She was also nominated in the Best International Performance category of the Premis de la Crítica, in Catalonia.

Reviews

"The performance does not leave us alone, it does not allow us to adopt the usual "passive" role of the spectator: It provokes our active participation, it desires our reaction, it depends on it, it stands open to the renegotiation of its stakes and is not completed until after we too have taken our own position - it remains, that is, essentially incomplete, since, ideally, the search for answers to the questions it raises will continue after we leave the theatre", Louisa Arcoumanea, www. lifo.gr.

"It achieves such a level of perfection that it could be described as a manifesto summing up the importance of theatre in today's society. Can theatre liberate us from our apathy? Can theatre make us think about creating a better model of society? One could even argue that these are not afterthoughts, but are, in fact, the nature of the very idea behind this play. Tiago Rodrigues, who wrote and directed the play, unleashes the critical thinking that we have too often seen reduced to false neutrality when confronted with current social contexts and pushes us to react."

Laura Cappelle, The New York Times, October 20, 2022

"Tiago Rodrigues's Catarina... has all the good qualities of a tragedy. It inspires personal sacrifice, is dialectical rather than didactic, debates which destiny is best for the collective, and is indifferent to what will become of its heroes. And it is a timely reminder of the importance of rituals in shaping and sustaining human communities."

Rui Pina Coelho, Sinais em linha (platform for criticism and reflection on the performing arts)

Credits

Production by Teatro Nacional D. Maria II (Lisboa)

Production management: Festival d'Avignon

Co-production: Wiener Festwochen, Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione (Modena), Théâtre de la Cité - CDN Toulouse Occitanie & Théâtre Garonne Scène européenne Toulouse, Festival d'Automne à Paris & Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Teatro di Roma - Teatro Nazionale, Comédie de Caen, Théâtre de Liège, Maison de la Culture d'Amiens, BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen), Le Trident - Scène nationale de Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Teatre Lliure (Barcelona), Centro Cultural Vila Flor (Guimarães), O Espaço do Tempo (Montemor-o-Novo).

Supported by Almeida Garrett Wines, Cano Amarelo, Culturgest

Copyright Spectacle/ Show: © Filipe Ferreira; Tiago Rodrigues © Christophe Raynaud de Lage

Written and directed by Tiago Rodrigues

Artistic collaboration: Magda Bizarro

Scenography: F. Ribeiro

Lighting: Nuno Meira

Costumes: José António Tenente

Sound design, original music: Pedro Costa

Choir director, vocal arrangements: João Henriques

Voices-over: Cláudio de Castro, Nadezhda Bocharova, Paula Mora, Pedro Moldão

Choreography: Sofia Dias, Vítor Roriz

Arms Coordinator: David Chan Cordeiro

Translation: Thomas Resendes (French), Daniel Hahn (English), Vincenzo Arsilio (Italian), Igor Metzeltin (German)

Subtitles by Patrícia Pimentel

Cast: Isabel Abreu, Romeu Costa, António Fonseca, Beatriz Maia, Marco Mendonça, António Parra, Carolina Passos Sousa, João Vicente.

Thanks to Mariana Gomes, Rui Pina Coelho, Margarida Bak Gordon, Rita Mendes and the team of the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II. Also to Sara Barros Leitão and Pedro Gil who, who were part of the original production team.

Duration: 2:30΄

In Portuguese with subtitles in Greek and English.

Tickets:

Sold Out Tickets: bit.ly/NIF24_tickets, at Stephanis stores and the Nicosia Municipal Theatre box office (Monday - Friday 10:00-13:00).

Ticket price:

ZONE A: €60/ €55

ZONE B: €50/ €45

ZONE C: €40 / €35

ZONE D: €25/ €20

Information: 22797979 (Monday - Friday 10:00-13:00) & bit.ly/Website_NIF2024

Children under 16 years of age are not allowed.

Please note that during the performance, shots are fired.

Festival identity

Organisers: Nicosia Municipality, Nicosia For Art

Institutional Sponsor: Ministry of Culture, Republic of Cyprus

Bronze sponsor: Onassis Stegi

Communication sponsors: DIAS Publishing House, SIGMA TV, LOVE Radio