Review: CATARINA AND THE BEAUTY OF KILLING FASCISTS at Dorfman, National Theatre

The passionate tale acts as an homage to real life impoverished farm worker Catarina Eufémia who was shot dead by the National Guard (while pregnant and holding her 8 month old baby), during a rally against the Estado Novo, in May of 1954. Here, playwright and director Tiago Rodrigues imagines that her descendants have kept her memory alive by gathering each year at her home in Alentejo where they reminisce, drink, and dine together in celebration of the imminent murder of a chosen fascist, who has been kidnapped to order for the occasion.

As each child of the extended family turns 26 years of age, it becomes their duty to play their part in keeping the grisly tradition alive. This year however, the young woman who has delivered the speechwriter whose words ultimately helped secure the return of a Fascist / Nationalist / Right-Wing / Populist government, is questioning the morality of ritual execution as a means to achieve a political objective. In a generational challenge, she enters into a drawn-out argument with her mother in which both score points amidst the emotional exploration of philosophical rights and wrongs.

The stylised interplay at the family gathering which opens the piece, is crammed with amusingly recognisable tropes. A son gets emotional thinking about his mother’s recipes and cooking, a daughter struggles to explain and justify her veganism to a family which is sucking in rustic specialities like pigs trotters. It’s all rather quaint and oddly charming, but events soon take a turn.

As a warning against the pitfalls inherent in the over simplification of the human experience through generalised ideologies, it makes a potent argument. Certainly the final hectoring speech by the politico who is ultimately freed from captivity, speaks to the jingoistic fervour and disturbingly simplistic rallying of whole sections of society under a banner. Such notions proclaim patriotic identity, alongside disgust and intolerance towards minorities in all their guises, while simultaneously espousing adherence to religious doctrines which perpetuate misogyny, domestic abuse and intolerance of migrants. As you can imagine there was a lot of muttering and awkward shifting in seats.

It’s a tough and drawn-out watch in sections, but has there ever been a more contentious and apposite vehicle for the times in which we live? The cast who deliver the piece in Portuguese with screened surtitles includes: Romeu Costa, Isabel Abreu, António Fonseca, Beatriz Maia, Carolina Passos Sousa, João Vicente, Marco Mendonça and António Parra.

CATARINA AND THE BEAUTY OF KILLING FASCISTS continues at Dorfman, National Theatre until 26th September and runs 2 hours 30mins straight through without interval.

Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists Tickets