Setúbal’s Teatro de Bolso Marks 50 Years with Interactive Anti-Fascist Comedy

A faint smell of fresh paint still lingers in Teatro de Bolso, yet a bubbling energy already fills the stalls: Setúbal’s oldest professional company is about to turn half-a-century and has chosen the most ironic possible gift—an uproarious handbook on authoritarian temptation. Audiences are bracing for a night that promises loud laughter, uneasy self-recognition and perhaps an unexpected shiver.

At a Glance

In fewer than ninety minutes the TAS troupe intends to deliver subversive laughter, an interactive questionnaire nicknamed fascistómetro, several provocative vignettes, a sprinkling of dark cabaret choreography, pointed references to current politics, a discreet homage to Rui Zink’s book, and an unmistakable warning about complacency. Everything is wrapped in the fast-paced humour that director Célia David perfected over decades of street-theatre activism.

Setting the Stage in Setúbal

The production lands on 27 November inside the intimate Teatro de Bolso, a space the size of a basketball half-court that nevertheless saw ground-breaking debuts during the post-Carnation years. David’s team whittled Zink’s 151 tongue-in-cheek “lessons” down to a little over 20, stitching them together with freshly written dialogue and bursts of live sound design. On stage a lone gold-spray throne, three microphones with coloured whips, and a revolving bureaucrat’s desk conjure a cartoon version of totalitarian iconography, underscoring how familiar those symbols still feel in southern Europe.

How the Audience Joins the Game

Before finding their seats, ticket-holders receive a pen and a folded sheet labelled Teste de Pureza Ideológica. Filling it is optional, but the actors—Cristina Cavalinhos, Andreia Trindade, Cláudia Aguizo and André Moniz—may call on random spectators mid-scene, reading answers that often trigger spur-of-the-moment riffs. The device lets viewers measure the authoritarian reflexes we all carry, turns the house lights into a second spotlight, injects doses of improvised comedy, and keeps the boundary between stage and stalls deliciously porous.

Half a Century of TAS: A Theatre Born of Freedom

TAS emerged in 1975, months after the dictatorship collapsed, and soon became synonymous with civic education, children’s itinerant shows, world-theatre translations, community workshops, street parades, actor-training labs, festivals in the Sado estuary and lobbying for local cultural policy. Choosing Manual do bom fascista for its 50-year milestone signals that the company still feels the duty to warn against democratic backsliding, especially after several European ballots handed double-digit scores to far-right parties in 2024 and 2025.

Portugal’s Long Affair with Political Satire

From Gil Vicente’s royal farces to the silver-screen revues of Parque Mayer, mocking the powers-that-be has acted as a national pressure valve. The new Setúbal show knowingly echoes Guerra Junqueiro’s poetic lampoons, the censored skits of the Estado Novo era, the recent musical Sr. Engenheiro, contemporary stand-up specials on streaming platforms, and even the viral memes that flood Portuguese Twitter on election night. Historians see a through-line: whenever social tension peaks, theatre troupes step in to roast the rhetoric of strongmen and remind audiences that a shared joke can be an early form of resistance.

Looking Ahead: What Critics Will be Watching

Although first reviews will only drop after premiere night, Lisbon-based columnists have already flagged the piece’s timing, its interactive conceit, the risk of normalising extremist slogans, the physical comedy pedigree of the cast, the merchandise-free economics of a modest pocket theatre, the potential for touring inland municipalities, the educational tie-ins for secondary schools, and the contrast between local funding cuts and artistic ambition. For spectators across Portugal, the bigger question may be simpler: can a collective burst of laughter inoculate a society that still remembers real censorship yet scrolls past digital hate speech every day?