LAST HOUR
D. MARIA II NATIONAL THEATER
EUNICE AGEAS NETWORK
Friday | 21:00
April 22, 2022
Duration: 195 minutes, with intermission
Age rating: over 12 years old
Prices: €10.00, with -50% discount for children under 30
Artistic and technical sheet
Text: Rui Cardoso Martins
Directed by: Gonçalo Amorim
With: Carlos Malvarez, Catarina Couto Sousa, Cláudio Castro, Ema Marli, Inês Cóias, João Grosso, José Neves, Manuel Coelho, Maria Rueff, Miguel Guilherme, Nadezhda Bocharova, Paula Mora
Original music: Paulo Furtado aka The Legendary Tigerman
Scenography and costumes: Catarina Barros
Light design: Cárin Frost
Sound design and sound design: João Neves
Video: Eduardo Breda
Directing assistance: Eduardo Breda, Patrícia Gonçalves
Scenography and costumes assistance: Susana Paixão
Production: D. Maria II National Theater
Artistic partnership: Teatro Experimental do Porto (TEP)
Support: Lusa – Portuguese News Agency, Público
The author of the text, for the purpose of writing this project commissioned by the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, received the scholarship for literary creation in Berlin – Botschaft Scholarship for Literary Creation 2017 – sponsored by the Portuguese Embassy in Germany.
This newspaper, Última Hora, plus its poor, besieged and terrified newsroom, live the fate of all newspapers: a serious crisis and the approach of the end. The freshest news, breaking news, the last minute will be the closing news…
The arrival of the Internet and the free sharing of content, the flight of advertising and the public to social platforms, political attacks and manipulation, corporate bad faith, the dismissal of the most capable reporters, the planetary published lies (also so-called fake news) created, so to speak, a reality more conducive to destruction.
It is in this nerve-racking without time (24×24 hours, at a fast pace) that the protagonists of this show will have to make absurd, counterproductive, ridiculous, regrettable decisions and, why not? Moving, to save their self-respect, the essence of their profession and try to bring bread to their children’s table.
What matters most in Última Hora – a comedy, it should be stressed – is humanity itself. The magnificent defects, virtues, heroisms, scoundrels, hidden games, secret loves, vices or altruisms make the universe of those who live to tell (and shape) the reality of the world. What final decision do you need to make? What lie, if necessary, in the name of survival? What theater happens every day?
Production: D. Maria II National Theater