Theatre and counter-memory: identity and resistance in the censorship archives of the Estado Novo

Abstract

This article examines censored Portuguese theatre during the final years of the Estado Novo (1973-1974), focusing on the relationship between memory and identity. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’s work on the ‘social frameworks of memory’ and Aleida Assmann’s work on cultural memory; it argues that theatrical censorship helped to define what could be remembered and shared in the public sphere. National identity thus emerges not as a fixed reality, but as a construction shaped by conflicting narratives and forms of discourse control. The study combines an analysis of censorship files held at the Torre do Tombo National Archive and the National Museum of Theatre and Dance with an analysis of two plays, Lisboa 72 and Na Barca com Mestre Gil. It demonstrates how these texts bring to the stage uncomfortable memories of the colonial war, social inequality and the hierarchy between centre and periphery, challenging the homogeneous model of identity promoted by the regime and reopening narratives about the dictatorial past.