The Portuguese author and director Tiago Rodrigues had already visited the TransAmériques Festival with By Heart (2015), an exercise as simple as it is beautiful, and Antony and Cleopatra (2017). But nothing prepared us for the very different experience that constitutes his ambitious spectacle Catarina and the beauty of killing fascistswhich the FTA has been presenting at the Jean-Duceppe Theater since last night.
Worried about the rise of populist far-right parties in Europe, the new director of the Avignon Festival has written a fable questioning what he calls the paradox of tolerance: should we tolerate the intolerant? Or does democracy require us to fight so fiercely against what threatens it?
The strange Portuguese clan that the creator imagined in this piece has the credo that “one must not hesitate to do evil in order to practice good”. Heirs to the radical gesture of a great-great-grandmother who, in 1954, avenged a worker killed in a demonstration under the Salazar dictatorship, the members of this family meet once a year to commemorate this tradition: to kill a fascist. It’s the youngest girl’s turn to be the designated assassin. But as she pulls the trigger, targeting the misogynist, homophobic MP she has kidnapped, doubt creeps into her like an “unwelcome guest” in the face of this extreme act. The dissident will become the rebel of this rebellious family.
With its big premise and these characters who, to pay homage to the commemorated victim, are all called Catarina (they also wear skirts), this show filled with derision often initially makes you laugh. But the text, which does not lack poetry at certain moments, also displays a clever construction. After the protagonist’s refusal, we are treated to some very strong scenes, played with great conviction by the cast.
And Catarina and the beauty of killing fascists ends in a real political forum. After remaining silent – except by his terrified look – the entire room, the hostage, addressing the audience, launches into an insidious flurry of speech, which begins by talking about freedom and drifts towards an attack on minorities. An interminable logorrhea which ended up causing an indescribable chaotic reaction within the room, seeming to abolish, incredibly, the difference between fiction and reality. Even if it was difficult to decide, among those who were heckling, between the spectators who were getting involved in the game and those who were truly outraged to hear such arguments on stage, wanting to silence the actor/tribune. Let us salute the impressive imperturbability of actor Romeu Costa during this long piece of bravery. And the intelligence of creator Tiago Rodrigues, who thus tests our own capacity to tolerate the intolerable, in an astonishing show which illustrates the strength of theater.