Casa Portuguesa

From 14 years old

Performance created on September 22, 2022 at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, Lisbon

In a dilapidated house, yet one firmly anchored in its foundations — perhaps an allegory for a breathless Portugal — a former soldier from the Portuguese colonial wars confronts the ghosts of his past, often merging with the country’s own troubled history.
Through the staging of this man’s life, forcibly enlisted against all his principles to fight in Africa and defend the homeland, the complex (and still young!) story of Portuguese democracy gradually unfolds onstage.

Alternating between past and present, Pedro Penim uses fiction to explore how the Portuguese view their own country and history, their culture, and their identity.
For while Portugal is indeed the land of Camões and Fado, steeped in gentle traditions, it was also once the seat of a sprawling colonial empire spread across five continents.
And long before becoming the country of the Carnation Revolution, it was Salazar’s nation, where the Estado Novo regime fueled nationalist sentiment through fados that even today, after fifty years of democracy, the Portuguese still know by heart.
A land of paradoxes — what does Portugal truly stand for?