It was the 25th of April that made the country emerge "from the night and the silence", putting an end to the longest dictatorship of the 20th century in Europe. For 48 years, the Portuguese were measuring (or weighing) every word that was said and written. Blue (and red) pencils, stamps, scissors and even fire were used by the Estado Novo censors to cut the root of thought and creation. Among the forms of artistic and cultural expression, theatre was one of the most affected by the institutionalisation of censorship. The main form of action was through prior censorship: texts were submitted to the Commission for the Examination and Classification of Performances, of the National Information Secretariat (SNI), to be assessed by censors; those that were not banned were returned with a note about the pages that should be cut or altered. Then there was also censorship of the show and an index of banned authors. authors.

"Making theatre was an act of permanent resistance." So says Júlio Gago. In the theatre, he took on different roles. As an actor, he says, he was always "a canastrão". He was arrested - not because of any show he had performed, although he did have the PIDE on his back. He was mobilised for the colonial war in Angola, deserted and went underground. He lived "almost always in the north" with another identity, until on 12 May 1972 he was arrested and sentenced to three years and four months in prison and two years of military deportation. He served four months in prison and then went to Guinea. It was the 25th of April that brought him back, and he was granted amnesty. A figure closely linked to the Teatro Experimental do Porto (TEP), Júlio Gago recalls what it was like to make theatre during the dictatorship, when fear and repression hung over the heads of artists and creators, who also circumvented censorship with courage and creativity.

Júlio recalls the bans that were imposed in 1967 on Fernando Gusmão's staging of John Osborne's O Tempo e a Ira (Look back in Anger), after the text had been approved by the SNI. The director wanted to use two slides of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which it was feared would be censored, but, to everyone's surprise, they were approved. "Maybe they thought the bombs were mushrooms," he laughs. The censorship was of a different kind. The TEP was told that all references to bells were forbidden, including sound effects ("because there were some annoying bells that annoyed the protagonists"). "We had a verbal response: we should have thought that the English church was Anglican, not Catholic Apostolic."

Playing cat and mouse

Both at the dress rehearsal and at the premiere of the shows, censors were present. "At least four tickets had to be reserved; we couldn't sell them or give them away." Despite the oppression, directors and actors risked a game of cat and mouse with the censors: "In O Tempo e a Ira, we had the premiere with Isabel wearing a skirt for another two or three days, but then - not least because PIDE and the censors didn't show up every day - Isabel went back to wearing trousers," Gago rejoices.

Mário Moutinho, an actor and director from Porto, also recalls "tricks to escape the blue pencil of censorship" shared by colleagues and friends. "There were plays that 'escaped' because the censors didn't understand the content; and then, in the rehearsal for the censors before the premiere, the trick was to say the text very quickly, especially at times when it could be problematic."

The case of The House of Bernarda Alba

Júlio Gago highlights the presentation of "two controversial shows" in the TEP's history during the dictatorship: "The first big scandal was the staging of A Promessa, by Bernardo Santareno, in October 1957, which ran for 11 performances"; the second was A Casa de Bernarda Alba, by Federico García Lorca, presented in 1972, directed by Angel Facio. "It was highly controversial at the time, as Angel Facio used several transvestites.

Bernarda Alba was the actor Júlio Cardoso, who is still active today. The play was never banned," says Gago. "What caused the most controversy was the design of the poster; a group of extremist Catholic ladies tore down posters of the play all over the city." Mário Moutinho also points to The House of Bernarda Alba as the most controversial show he can remember in Porto. "The play was very controversial because it has a pregnancy termination scene, and it was made with the guts and entrails of a sheep, which were taken from a butcher's shop, and the poster represented a female figure who had the Sacred Heart of Jesus in her sex. This was terrible in Porto, with masses of displeasure. In the end, the play wasn't censored, but the posters were torn down and there were demonstrations."

"What we went through to get here"

It was at the censorship rehearsals (or "rehearsals de apuro"), usually close to the première, that the censors would once again assess whether to apply cuts or to ban a show altogether. In this regard, Júlio Gago recalls: "In 1962, the TEP banned Boris Vian's Le Schmürz (Les Bâtisseurs d'Empire), directed by João Guedes, two days before the premiere. It wasn't until 15 years later, in 1977, in the midst of democracy, that the director was able to present the show, which featured João Paulo Costa.

"The 25th of April opened all the doors"

"On 25 April we lived through a unique moment in our contemporary history, and a very militant, engaged, very political, sometimes pamphleteering and sometimes even artistically mediocre theatre was made to convey the message and what was wanted to be said," says Mário Moutinho, co-author of the book "O Teatro Semiprofissional no Porto - Arte, activismo e experimentalismo nos anos 70 e 80".

"There were several semi-professional groups in the city of Porto who, living through that moment, left the more conventional amateur groups, or left producers' associations, factory groups... There was an explosion of dozens of groups doing theatre because it was a way of saying something other than political discussion," he says. The actor and director says that theatre in Porto, despite maintaining its "social mission and political critique", was concerned with creating "artistic products of a different quality". To this end, there was a strong commitment to training, with the opening of theatre courses at TEP and Seiva Trupe.

"This is what defines the theatre groups that emerged in Porto after 25 April," he says, assuring us that these groups "were innovative because they brought new languages and new ways of doing theatre". "They started making collective texts, collective staging, collage of texts, street theatre, puppet theatre, black light theatre, multidisciplinary theatre, mixing circus and music... So these groups brought a breath of fresh air to theatre in Porto," he concludes.

The friends of the theatre

Before the 25 April Revolution, Filomena Gigante was a young girl who enjoyed theatre thanks to family influences. She remembers going with her parents to the Teatro Experimental do Porto (TEP) to see Goldoni's "Estalajadeira", which at the time was located in Rua do Ateneu Comercial do Porto. "I was privileged to have access to culture, as I was the daughter of 'intellectuals'." - Her father was a professor of architecture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, her grandfather was a theatre critic for the Jornal Comércio do Porto and her grandmother was a piano teacher. But the great forerunner of this taste and access to knowledge was undoubtedly his father: "He always fostered a taste for books and the arts. He gave me Eça de Queirós' 'The Crime of Father Amaro', even though it was forbidden, among many others."

Although he had more access to culture than the majority of the Portuguese population, his age didn't allow him to be aware of reality, nor did he have the political thought to question why there were so many restrictions. She knew she was living in a dictatorship without knowing for sure what the word meant. What was certain was that her home phone was tapped, she had to wear skirts below the knee, she couldn't wear glass stockings, she couldn't wear jeans, she remembers "going to Spain to buy them because there weren't any here". She wasn't allowed to wear make-up, "one day I coloured my eyes with a black pencil and the vice-chancellor came and said: You look like the bride from the tomb, go and wash your face immediately!"

Until, in her fifth year at Rainha Santa Isabel, she made a "revolutionary friend", Graça Castro, who was a year older and "politically dynamic". The two decided to put on a play entitled "Man, Freedom and the Executioner". Graça wrote the text with Filomena's help, they got two other classmates "from the reviralho, as it was called at the time," and presented it to the class. They chose gym class to perform the play, and the teacher, who was "left-wing" and against the current regime, told them when she saw the play that they couldn't perform it "anywhere else". "Hide it and tear up the text so you don't get into trouble!"

Later, at António Nobre, her revolutionary friend gave her anti-regime leaflets to stick on the walls with stickers that read "For education at the service of the people". The posters argued that education should be for everyone, regardless of their social class. Just before she could stick them on the wall, Filomena lost the bag she had kept them in. When she goes to the lost property to ask for it, she remembers at that moment that they might have seen the leaflets and becomes frightened. "It was Mr Pires, who belonged to PIDE, who was in charge of these lost items. - Is this your bag? É. Do you know what's in it? Pencils, erasers, compasses... [Everything except the leaflets]. And this? [The pamphlets] They gave them to me outside the school. Who? I don't know."

On 25 April 1974, Filomena was 17 years old, in high school, on a day that seemed the same as any other. Until she heard a warning over the school radio, from the rector Abílio da Fonseca, saying that no-one was allowed to leave the building. There was a general hubbub, the gates were closed. Filomena heard the voice of her father and her friend Graça's father and the rector of the high school in a turbulent conversation about not being allowed to take their daughters out of school. After a few hours, the gates opened and her father said to her: "There's a revolution!"

No censor's pencil

It was during a tram journey from Foz do Douro to Praça dos Leões that João Paulo Costa realised the country was entering a revolution. When he arrived at his destination, he came across his "left-wing" cousin, who told him in a loud voice: "There are no classes today! There's a revolution!"

João Paulo was in his first year at the Faculty of Engineering, at the time located in the rectory building of the University of Porto. When he heard the news, he immediately went home, gathered a group of friends in the music room "very excited and curious" to find out what was going on, and switched on the television. He heard the anthem of the Armed Forces and a meeting of military personnel that included General António de Spínola (later appointed President of the Portuguese Republic), among others. It was at this meeting that they declared a "state of siege that suspended the constitutional regime in force".

At the time, aged just 19, João Paulo already had a certain "political awareness" to realise what was going on. His family always invited him to reflect, not least because one of his uncles "was in the famous escape from Peniche, he was one of the seven political prisoners", and his grandfather "was forced by PIDE to close a school where he was headmaster". All these events in his family contributed to him questioning and developing his political thinking.

With so many changes in the country, during his second year at university there were hardly any classes and João Paulo became disinterested in the engineering course. "I felt like I was wasting my time," he says. In the meantime, he heard on the news that he was going to start a theatre course at the Teatro Experimental do Porto (TEP) directed by Roberto Merino. After dinner, he went to the café where he used to meet up with his friends and suggested: "What if the guys came round?" - There were four of them and they stayed there for the theatre course. After three months, João Paulo was invited to join the company (TEP).

What distinguishes theatre before and after 25 April is, above all, the abolition of prior censorship. "Before the premiere of a show, there was the so-called blue pencil, which crossed out what couldn't be said". It was only in more isolated spaces that it was possible to put on more subversive shows, in other words, shows that were at odds with the regime's ideology. This control ended with the Revolution and from then on "the shows began to be very interventionist". The theatres filled up with audiences because "people wanted to know more about what was happening in the country". After the revolution, "new audiences emerged".

In fact, it was after 25 April that there was an explosion of repertoire; in addition to the classics, such as Molière, Shakespeare, Sophocles, there was a great interest in authors such as Gil Vicente and António José da Silva, while other types of shows were being performed, such as "Miss Julia, by August Strindberg. As well as Bertolt Brecht, previously censored.

It was also with the 25th of April that the first theatre schools emerged, enabling actors to become professional actors. Amongst others, the Academia Contemporânea do Espetáculo (ACE) emerged, of which João Paulo Costa is a founder along with other actors such as António Capelo. He taught acting for many years at ACE and currently continues to put on shows at the Bolhão Theatre.

Are there now more or less established audiences in Porto? João Paulo believes that "there has been more interest in theatre". Perhaps social networks have led people to a kind of "accompanied isolation, which has somewhat destroyed the community sense of living an artistic experience". Either the atmosphere is festive (like at festivals) or "people prefer to stay in the comfort of their homes and talk to their friend in London or even two streets over." This isolation is camouflaged by this "wave of tourists that has Porto buzzing". If this weren't the case, we'd be more aware of the emptiness and a certain "cultural desertification".

Without losing sight of entertainment, "the theatre puts more or less political themes back on the agenda: war, women's rights, the environmental crisis", among other global issues. Ultimately, "the theatre continues to play an educational role, helping society to think".

"We set out on these projects because we want to know, we want to know more. The revolutionary period is another period that continues to be shrouded in mystery," says André Amálio. Luta Armada focuses on the actions of "groups that saw armed struggle as the only way to end fascism and Portuguese colonialism, such as LUAR, the Revolutionary Brigades and ARA"; the actions of far-right groups that operated during the PREC period, between 1974 and 1975, such as the terrorist organisation MDLP; and also the activity of the Forças Populares 25 de Abril (FP-25), from 1980 onwards.

This creation is the result of research, but also of "an extensive collection of testimonies from people who were militants in these organisations", a task that is not always easy: "We've had a lot of difficulty talking to people who belonged to the bomb network or extreme right-wing groups, and we've also had a lot of difficulty finding anyone from the FP25 who wants to talk about that experience," he reveals.

The desire to work on these issues, he says, "was born precisely from the period we are living through now". "We're returning to a period of extremes, of polarisation in politics, which led us to want to look at different moments in our history when various groups reached such a point of extremism that they wanted to take armed action." In this show, different periods are portrayed: "the period in which the fall of fascism in Portugal is almost happening, the revolutionary period, and then the huge period in which democracy is cemented."

Documentary theatre and the confrontation with our collective history

Portugal Não É um País Pequeno was followed by Passa-Porte, Libertação, Amores Pós-Coloniais and Os Filhos do Colonialismo. All of them seek to debate these themes from Portugal's recent history. "We think there's a lot we can learn from the past, that there's a lot of transmission of memory that hasn't been done, there are many issues that - because they're problematic - haven't been discussed in our society," says Amálio. Theatre can therefore be a space for discussion and analysis of these issues. "We make political theatre that tries to act and that tries to look at problems that exist in society, and that tries to bridge the gap between the past and the present," he says.

Perhaps because reality goes beyond fiction, Amálio prefers to look for real stories and their protagonists to make theatre. In Hotel Europa's shows, people are more important than characters. "Each show is a different object; we develop our creations from the people who are working with us at that moment. The research and information-gathering work can be done with the performers - when they are professional performers - but also with the people of a community - who are not professionals - who are challenged to enter the project and think about the collective or individual past, their own personal and family history," she says.

Theatre and censorship before 25 April

For André Amálio, the word "is a very powerful thing". And theatre, because it uses words, easily becomes a target for censorship: "While other arts, such as dance, can go down a path of abstraction, theatre can communicate in a very direct way, and this has scared a lot of people over many years," he says.

"Artists are these very dangerous people," he ironises. "Perhaps because they are freer, because they can be freer to create, they are scary. Freedom is scary. Freedom, daring, non-conformity have always frightened conservative ideologies. Theatre and art in general are transgressive," he concludes.

"Theatre doesn't transform, it's the people who transform"

Sara Barros Leitão was born almost two decades after the 25th of April. Actress, director and creator, in 2020 she founded the artistic organisation Cassandra, where she develops her projects, and which has had a home in Bonfim since October last year. At the moment, as part of the 50th anniversary of 25 April, she is touring several cities with the show Guião para um País Possível (Script for a Possible Country), which resulted from a dive into the official records of speeches made in the Assembly of the Republic during the democratic period.

"I began to fall in love, once again, with archives and papers, in this case the Diaries of the Assembly of the Republic, which are faithful and complete transcriptions of everything that happens there, including the asides, the didascallia and the indications," he tells us, assuring us that these records do indeed resemble a theatre script. "They have characters, conflict, asides, dialogue, content, discussion, everything a script has."

With these transcripts as a starting point, Sara imagined a show to "take a journey through the last 50 years of democracy" and tell a story "from an angle that is also an achievement of democracy - a free, plural Assembly, with many parties represented, which didn't happen before 25 April".

"It's been a very interesting journey to discover what this country has been over the last 50 years; to realise what we've gone through to get here, the advances and setbacks, what was really difficult, what was really unusual, and to understand the moment we're in today," he says. When he decided to do this show, "I didn't realise we were going through a phase like this". Since Guião para um País Possível premiered, "the government has fallen, there have been elections, the Assembly of the Republic has been completely reconverted, now with 50 far-right deputies".

For the actress and director, "an attentive theatre is a theatre in dialogue with the world and with the transformations" that are taking place, pointing to the theatre that emerged in the post-25 April period, with PREC, as an example. "It was a very demanding theatre, but the country was like that, there was no place for bourgeois theatre. We told the stories of the workers, the people who were occupying the land, the agrarian reform, that's what was happening," he says.

In this sense, she says that the theatre that was made during this period in Portugal was "very strong" because "it happened everywhere, and outside the theatre", and she also argues that theatre is political not just in its content; "it has to be in its form and in the way it reaches" the public.

However, the artistic creator maintains that theatre is not, in itself, an agent of change. She recalls her experience in the cast of Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists. "I was able to experience the magnetism that this show provokes in the audience, and how the audience thinks they leave the show transformed, but the people who go to see it are the ones who already want to hear about it. We've just had an election that shows that; we rarely manage to reach an audience that thinks differently. That's why theatre doesn't transform, it's the people who transform," he says.