Exploring Portugal’s recent history through a play that combines theatre, installation, and performance
Loulé’s Cineteatro Louletano will premiere “Os Memoráveis” (The Memorable Ones) on September 25 and 26 at 7pm. The stage will be transformed into a “living archive, a documentary and fictional laboratory”, where testimonies, ghosts, and mythologies of the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, intersect.
The play is based on Lídia Jorge’s 2014 novel “The Memorable Ones”. The book recounts the events of the Revolution through the eyes of Ana Maria Machado, a Portuguese reporter living in Washington. In 2004, she was invited by the former American ambassador to direct a documentary about what he describes as a “rare moment in history”.
From “Carnation Revolution, A Creation by Mákina de Cena based on the work of Lídia Jorge”
In the novel, Ana Maria recruits two former colleagues, and together they interview participants and witnesses of the revolution in an attempt to understand what is left of the promises of April. The story explores the glorification and illusion of the Revolution, the disillusionment of its participants, and the challenges of building a democracy, highlighting both the myths and truths of April 1974.
The Algarve-based artistic collective Mákina de Cena, under the direction of Carolina Santos, has created an ambitious adaptation of the novel that combines theatre, video installation, and performance. The production remains faithful to the novel’s literary richness whilst introducing a contemporary, multimedia approach, bridging acting with screen projections, scenic manipulations in real time, and direct interaction with the audience. The performance also includes a 45-minute intermezzo with dinner, further immersing viewers in the experience.
From “Carnation Revolution, A Creation by Mákina de Cena based on the work of Lídia Jorge”
The play translates the novel’s journey to the stage, capturing its paradoxes: glorification and disillusionment, myth and truth, the collective and the personal. Each interview becomes a scene, each scene a confrontation between past and present.
The cast totals 20 performers, spanning generations from young reporters to “Memorables” over 50 years old, where the show works like a mirror into the post-revolutionary generations. Featured performers include Sara Vicente, Beatriz Medeiros, Diogo Simão, Luís Vicente, Zeca Medeiros, Dinis Gomes, Glória Fernandes, and Telma Saião, among others.
From “Carnation Revolution, A Creation by Mákina de Cena based on the work of Lídia Jorge”
The play invites the audience into a journey into the heart of Lídia Jorge’s narrative, offering the audience the experience of a slow-paced theatre, in a time outside of time, in a dialogue with History that, without false optimism, hopes to renew hope in humanity.
Mákina de Cena’s “Os Memoráveis” is “an attempt to understand the Revolution not as a closed chapter, but as an ongoing process”. The show does not shy away from being too long or too complex, inviting the audience to think about the country as “if looking into a broken mirror”. The show is also a manifesto that “the Algarve is a demanding creative territory, which does not shy away from great texts or great stages”, as organisers point out.
Tickets cost €15. Admission is free for people with special needs, children up to 12 years old, and holders of the Loulé City Council senior citizen card (only available upon collection of a ticket at the physical ticket office). There is also a 50% discount for group tickets of 10 people, only available at the physical ticket office, and a 30% discount for companions of people with special needs, people over 65 and people under 25.
“Os Memoráveis” will continue on tour throughout 2026, with performances confirmed at the municipal theatres of Lagos and Lagoa, and a special season at the Lethes Theatre in Faro, in partnership with ACTA – Companhia de Teatro do Algarve.
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