Espaço Escola de Mulheres, the theatre hall of Clube Estefânia.

“It’s about… I think… it seems to me that… that is… I like it!
A more or less concrete body in a room, which is a washing machine, which is an island, which is a space inhabited by a choir. The world outside doesn’t matter, or will stop mattering very soon. A son searches for a mother. He wants to be loved and perhaps to love, rationally speaking. He knows what he wants to do, but he doesn’t know what he wants to say. He says that all of this is not passion or desire, it is love. She is dead, but she remains present.”

Antes que canalha caia em desuso (“Before Canalha Falls into Disuse”) emerged from an invitation made by Cultura em Expansão in 2024 to create and present a solo performance in Porto. It is a remake of a trilogy that began Mário Coelho’s career as a playwright and director, “Trilogia do abandono da infância” (“Trilogy of the Abandonment of Childhood”), in which he revisits themes and anxieties that have always shaped his existence — and which he now decides, once and for all, to bring to a close (already acknowledging the bluff in that statement).

WARNING: The performance addresses themes related to grief, depression, and suicide; and it is a work of fiction.