KASTROKRIOLA

In KastroKriola, Cape Verdean playwright Caplan Neves recreates António Ferreira’s Castro, bringing us a stage creolisation intent on finding out how much can this classic Portuguese symbolically resound in today’s Cape Verde. This tragedy of royal conflict is now seen through the prism of the internal intrigues of modern-time political parties. While in Ferreira’s play the risk of foreign occupation and the tarnishing of “a spotless gold” are the driving forces behind the penalisation of the love between Pedro and Inês, what “sets this party and country ablaze” in KastroKriola is the scandalous homoaffective relationship of Kastro and Petra – the latter a politician with a promising future in the upper reaches of power. Both of them, too, face the persecution of their peers for “reasons of State” and use the same weapons against intolerance and tyranny. About Petra, it is said: “She obeys a greater order: her heart”. KastroKriola marks the culmination of the artistic residency of a group of Cape Verdean artists at the TNSJ, under the direction of Nuno Cardoso and in close link with our teams, all this thanks to the cooperation agreement signed in September 2019 by the Cape Verdean Ministry of Culture and Creative Industries and the Teatro Nacional São João.