THE FIVE LESBIAN BROTHERS
THE SECRETARIES
©Nullplus
Bacchae, Witches, Secretaries... Since the dawn of time, women have gone to the forest to settle the score with patriarchy, to rip apart kings, seduce satanic goats, and slaughter lumberjacks. Oh well, basically to restore the balance of the world!
Set in the fictional town of Big Bone (Oregon), "before Windows '95", The Secretaries, by the American feminist collective The Five Lesbian Brothers, tells the story of five women who do admin work at Cooney Lumber Mill. Stuck in a sterile office and in a job that demands them to contribute to their boss' profit and constantly feed the lumberjacks' sexist fetiches, these secretaries start a secret cult: in order to make up for gender inequality, they slaughter one lumberjack every month, on the first night of their synchronized periods.
The Secretaries opened in 1993, at the WOW Café, in New York City, and had a great impact on the American theater avant-garde in the 1990s. Thirty years later, the play is performed in Portugal for the first time, in a claustrophobic and uncomfortable show that recovers the aesthetics of 1980s and 1990s slasher movies and TV fiction, while studying the insidious infiltration of patriarchy into women's professional, political, and interpersonal realms.
17 e 18 JANUARY 2025
Teatro Campo Alegre (Porto)
7 FEBRUARY 2025
Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente (Coimbra)
17-19 OCTOBER 2025
Sala Valentim de Barros / Hospital Miguel Bombarda (Lisbon)
STAY TUNED FOR UPDATES ON MOVIE NIGHTS "SLASHERS" AND OTHER ASSOCIATED EVENTS...
Text
The Five Lesbian Brothers*
Translation and direction
Maria Inês Marques
Cast
Carolina Amaral, Crista Alfaiate, June João, Lígia Roque, Maria Jorge
Guest voice appearance
Luís Moreira
Set and costumes design
Pedro Azevedo
Original soundtrack and sound design
Rui Lima e Sérgio Martins
Lighting design
Teresa Antunes
Video
Fábio Coelho
Choreography
Diego Bragà
Make up artist
Jacinta Afonso
Head of production
Nuno Eusébio
Communication
Luís Moreira, Maria Inês Marques, Nuno Eusébio
Photos
Mafalda Lencastre
Production
PLATAFORMA UMA
Coproduction
Teatro Municipal do Porto, Teatro Nacional Dona Maria II, Teatro Académico de Gil Vicente, Cineteatro Louletano
Artistic residency
Espaço A OFICINA
Partners
Rua das gaivotas 6, Hotel Lisbon Art Stay, Garbox, Câmara Municipal de Lisboa e Pólo Cultural das Gaivotas
This project received funding from República Portuguesa / Direção Geral das Artes and Fundo Cultural AGECOP - SPA
*The Five Lesbian Brothers are Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey and Lisa Kron. They came together as an acting company in 1989 after performing together in various other combinations at the OBIE Award-winning WOW Café. The Brothers are recipients of the OBIE Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award (The Bessie), and a New York Press Award for Best Performance Group. Their theater repertoire includes Voyage to Lesbos, Brave Smiles... another lesbian tragedy, Brides of the Moon, Scary Luv and, of course, The Secretaries. All these works were written and performed by the Brothers, almost always under the direction of Kate Stafford, with whom they've maintained a long creative relationship.
