A new exhibition, curated by Miguel Falcão, presents both well-known and some previously unpublished texts by neo-realist playwrights, drawing from the museum’s collection. This showcase, open until April, is divided into six thematic sections.
Titled “A Mirror to See Inside,” advocating Alves Redol’s idea of theater as a medium for personal and societal reflection, the exhibition aims to illustrate that each represented author and their works serve as “mirrors.”
“These very diverse mirrors, both thematically and formally,” offer visitors an opportunity to “reflect on the times,” Falcão emphasized.
The scope spans from the 1940s to the 1970s, during the Salazar dictatorship and leading up to the April 25th Revolution, as well as contemporary times.
As these texts “have many points of contact with the turbulent times we are experiencing,” noted the exhibition’s curator, also a professor at the School of Education of Lisbon.
The first section highlights the extensive presence of theater within neo-realism, previously underrepresented to a few authors such as Alves Redol, Romeu Correia, and Avelino Cunhal, who also wrote under the pseudonym Pedro Serôdio, Falcão said.
This section also showcases novelists, storytellers, and poets who wrote plays, alongside playwrights closely associated with the movement, like Vergílio Ferreira, who momentarily embraced neo-realism in the late 1940s before distancing himself.
An area dedicated to the published plays, featuring “dozens of these playwrights” with accompanying biographies and a selection of both ideological and theatrical works, considered “essential for neo-realist writers, not only by Portuguese authors but also notably by foreign ones,” is included.
Boasting a “very contemporary” graphic design, the exhibition features several “scenographic” areas conceived by Artur Pinheiro, an art director known for his work in theater, television, and film, Falcão noted.
These scenographic areas include a “small office of a neo-realist writer where visitors can view stage-designed book spines of these key reference works for the authors,” he observed.
“Censorship in Theater” is the theme of the second section, with a small area dedicated to remembering that although theater, “both in text and performance, was heavily pursued and monitored by the regime, it was also utilized to propagate its ideology and values.”
The aspect of “self-censorship, which had a significant impact on neo-realism,” is also evident, as many Portuguese theater companies refrained from staging productions after repeated censorship refusals.
Illustrating these cases, the exhibition includes a section with drawers containing complete, incomplete, or even scenographic sketches of plays by writers like Joaquim Namorado or Sidónio Muralha that never reached the stage.
The third section addresses theatrical renewal, focusing on the post-1940s era and post-war period when there was a sense that “new trends might emerge,” as “censorship relaxed” and “new amateur or mixed groups appeared,” explained the curator.
Among these groups were the Teatro Estúdio do Salitre, initiated by a group around Gino Saviotti, then cultural attaché of the Italian embassy in Portugal, a theater man and Pirandello translator, comprising neo-realist writers such as Alves Redol, Arquimedes de Silva Santos, and Luiz Francisco Rebello. Also included are the Círculo de Cultura Teatral – Teatro Experimental do Porto, active in the late 1940s.
“Authorized Stages” is the fourth section, illustrating that “despite heavy supervision and censorship,” neo-realist drama was represented by “some of the most notable companies from the 1950s to early 1970s,” such as the Amélia Rey-Colaço/Robles Monteiro company, concessionaires of the National Theater D. Maria II, and the Teatro Moderno de Lisboa, regarded as “one of the first independent companies” with company actors like Cármen Dolores, Ruy de Carvalho, and Rogério Paulo.
The exhibition also features plays adapted for radio and television theater, highlighting what is considered “the definitive neo-realist play: ‘Forja,’ by Alves Redol, with two amateur actresses performing the opening scene, written in 1949 and first staged in 1969 at Teatro Laura Alves. Years earlier, it was performed in Mozambique, where censorship was less strict.
“Father Martinho’s Betrayal” by Bernardo Santareno, staged in Portugal in 1974 after its Cuban premiere four years prior, and “The Next Day,” written in 1948/49 by Luiz Francisco Rebello and staged in Portugal only in 1963, after performances in France, Brazil, and Italy, are also showcased.
The final section, “Clandestine Stages,” allows visitors to immerse themselves in a “darker, calmer, more reflective” environment, evoking the powerful sessions of public readings for workers, peasants, and the illiterate, or puppet theaters with strong elements of social and political critique.
“After Neo-realism,” the sixth and final section, features “dozens of plays” staged after the April 25 Revolution, challenging “critics who claim neo-realist drama is outdated and of no interest to theater creators, which is untrue,” highlighted Miguel Falcão, citing plays like “Portuguese, Writer, 45 Years Old” and “Father Martinho’s Betrayal,” both by Bernardo Santareno and staged in the summer of 1974.
Guided tours by Miguel Falcão and short performances by Cegada, one of the local theater groups, are part of the parallel activities offered by the exhibition, which, following its opening today, features a poetry recital by actresses Maria João Luís and Natália Luiza.
