Loulé: The play «Os Memoráveis» premieres with a journey down memory lane in April

Fifty-one years after the Carnation Revolution, memory is both a battlefield and a space for creation. In "Os Memoráveis," the stage transforms into a living archive, a documentary and fictional laboratory, where testimonies, ghosts, and mythologies of April intersect. Based on Lídia Jorge's novel, the Algarve-based artistic group Mákina de Cena creates a sweeping spectacle that straddles theater, video installation, and performance.

In the original narrative, we follow Ana Maria Machado, a Portuguese journalist based in Washington, invited by the former US ambassador to make a documentary about April 25, 1974.

Back in Portugal, Ana joins two former colleagues and sets off on an odyssey of interviews with key figures of the revolution, in an attempt to understand what remains of the promise of April.

In this theatrical adaptation, this journey is transposed to the stage with all its paradoxes: glorification and disenchantment, myth and truth, the collective and the intimate. The result is a hybrid and ambitious artistic object, where each interview is treated as an episode, each scene a confrontation between past and present.

Director Carolina Santos proposes a radically contemporary approach, faithful to the literary depth of the work, but open to the intersection of scenic languages. The show features screen acting and live theatrical performances, live and pre-recorded video projections, real-time set manipulation, direct audience interaction, and a 45-minute intermezzo with dinner. This gesture is not only aesthetic but also ethical, rekindling conviviality and sharing as revolutionary practices.

With 14 performers (total cast of 20 people, full team has 34 members), from young reporters to Memorables over fifty years old, the show also functions as a mirror of the post-revolutionary generations.

The cast includes names such as Sara Vicente, Beatriz Medeiros and Diogo Simão, as well as Luís Vicente (ACTA ), Zeca Medeiros, Dinis Gomes, Paulo Moreira, Pedro Monteiro, Glória Fernandes and Telma Saião, among others.

More than just a production, "Os Memoráveis" is a manifesto that the Algarve is a territory of demanding creation, which is not afraid of great texts or big stages.

The premiere of «Os Memoráveis» is scheduled for the 25th, with a new performance on the 26th of September, at 7pm, at Cineteatro Louletano, in Loulé, the main co-producer of the project.

In 2026, the show will continue on tour, with performances already confirmed at the municipal theaters of Lagos, Lagoa and a special season at Teatro Lethes, in Faro, in partnership with ACTA – Companhia de Teatro do Algarve.

"Os Memoráveis" by Mákina de Cena is an attempt to understand the Revolution not as a closed chapter, but as an open-ended process. A show that fears neither duration nor complexity, inviting the audience to consider the country as if looking into a broken mirror, trying to recognize itself among the shards, but also, perhaps, invent new images of the future.

Commissioned by Cineteatro Louletano – Municipality of Loulé, co-produced by the municipality of Lagos, in partnership with ACTA Teatro Lethes and the municipality of Lagoa, it also has funding from the Portuguese Republic – Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport – Directorate-General for the Arts, within the scope of the Sustained Support Biennial 25-26.