“I will never stop writing,” declares Maria Teresa defiantly, blood streaked across her face and hips. Beside her, Maria Isael and Maria de Fátima hold her hands, tend to her wounds, and then turn to write as well.
It is Lisbon, 1971, in the final years of the brutal Salazar dictatorship – a regime that held Portugal in the grip of censorship and authoritarianism for over four decades, yet remains far less remembered in European history than its counterparts.
Eduarda Nogueira’s script powerfully resurrects this story of resistance and justice, centring on the Three Marias and their unyielding fight for freedom of expression. Together, they co-write New Portuguese Letters, a seismic feminist text that explored women’s sexuality, desire and identity against the repressive bounds of patriarchy, religion and despotism.
Actresses Nogueira, Isabella Dellazari Velarde and Maria Barros deliver riveting performances, powerfully embodying both the women themselves and the forces that oppress them. With unnerving fluidity, they shift between the defiant Marias, abusive husbands and brutal police interrogators. In doing so, they expose the continuum of violence and corrosion of female autonomy in Portugal. Dark red lighting, combined with the raw physicality of Fight Director Františka Vosátková’s choreography, heightens the dehumanisation: the women’s bodies and words are dismantled, weaponised, and turned against them.
Set in the Maria’s writing studio, the play moves sharply between courtroom, prison, settings of domestic violence, punctuated by radio broadcasts that underscore the omnipresence of the political. Following the women through the publication of the book, its censorship, and their imprisonment, we see them finally acquitted in 1974 with the Carnation Revolution. As Portugal is finally liberated, the Marias weep with joy. They hand the audience the red flowers of the revolution, in a moment of deeply emotional intimacy.
Though rooted in history, The Three Marias cuts through time and into our present. The threats of shrinking democracy, censorship, state violence and repression of women’s rights, sexuality, and identity remain frighteningly alive today. The placards of the revolution say it best: they fight “Because All Women Are Maria”.
Wendy McEwan’s direction is electric. Urgent, unflinching and deeply moving, The Three Marias is a must-see at the Fringe this summer.
Image by Alba McGowan, provided to The Student as press.