The play ‘As secretárias,’ directed by Maria Inês Marques, is a “dark comedy about patriarchy and feminism,” and will be performed next weekend on February 17, 18, and 19 at Sala Estúdio Valentim de Barros, after its January debut at Teatro do Campo Alegre in Porto, as noted by TNDM.
The action is set in the fictional town of Big Bone, Oregon, in the early 1990s, focusing on five administrative workers at a sawmill.
Confined to the office and working solely for the owner’s profit while “feeding the male employees’ chauvinistic fantasies,” these five employees engage in a secret ritual aimed at “rectifying gender injustices.”
The ritual involves the monthly killing of a lumberjack on the first night of their synchronized menstrual cycles.
‘As secretárias,’ covering themes like “patriarchy, feminism, gender roles, or capitalism,” debuted in 1993 at the WOW Café in New York, marking a significant moment in the American theatrical avant-garde of the 1990s, according to experts.
Thirty-two years later, the text is staged in Portugal in a “claustrophobic show that revives the ‘slasher’ aesthetic,” a horror film genre featuring a psychopath pursuing and killing victims, “alongside 1980s/90s television fiction, offering a rigorous and uncomfortable study of the insidious infiltration of patriarchy in women’s professional, political, and interpersonal worlds.”
Translated by director Maria Inês Marques, the cast includes Carolina Amaral, Crista Alfaiate, June João, and Maria Jorge as the secretaries, with Lígia Roque playing the boss.
The production is a collaboration between Plataforma Uma, TNDM, Teatro Municipal do Porto, and Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente in Coimbra.
Special participation in the ‘voice off’ includes David Pereira Bastos, João Vicente, Luís Moreira, and Marco Mendonça.
The set and costumes are by Pedro Azevedo, lighting design by Teresa Antunes, and original music and sound design by Rui Lima and Sérgio Martins.
Fábio Coelho is responsible for video, with choreographic support by Diego Braga.
Performances are scheduled for 21:00 on the 17th, 19:00 on the 18th, and 16:00 on the 19th.
