The premiere of the play “Happy New Lear”, by A Barraca, was postponed to November 4, due to the health reasons of a team member, the company announced. The health and well-being of the team are a priority, says the company, which offers refunds or date changes to the viewers.
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16/10/2026
by
Lusa
A premiere of the play “Happy New Lear”, by A Barraca, was postponed to November 4 due to “health reasons of one of the team members”, announced today the theatrical company on its official Facebook page.
“The health and well-being of our entire team are our top priority. We deeply regret the inconvenience this situation may cause”, adds a statement from A Barraca on the postponement of the play's debut, initially scheduled for the next day 21.
The company based in the Cinearte building, in Lisbon, adds that those who have already purchased tickets can change the date to watch the show or be reimbursed if they do not have the possibility to watch the play on another date.
“Happy New Lear” puts Maria do Céu Guerra and Maria Rueff to play, in a spectacle that the company directed by Hélder Mateus da Costa and Maria do Céu Guerra presents as “a new and happy version” of William Shakespeare’s “King Lear”.
In this version, the relationship between the characters Bobo and King allows “to dive into the great problems of our time: abandonment, old age, precariousness, indifference, war and despair”, the company said in a press release when it announced the premiere of the play.
“Happy New Lear” is authored by Patrícia Portela, from the original text of the English playwright and the translations made by Álvaro Cunhal, Millôr Fernandes and Manuel Gomes da Torre.
“ An old aristocrat from other times wanders lost and abandoned in a gas station. A comedian on the way to a year-end animation runs out of a car on a national road. Destiny seems to want to join these two characters in a tragicomic journey that combines an ancient history of family succession with a practical problem of the contemporary world”, according to the synopsis.
With the staging of Martim Pedroso, “Happy New Lear” will be on stage until December 31, being a production premiered in the year in which The Barraca celebrates half a century of cultural activity.
Directed by Maria do Céu Guerra and Hélder Mateus da Costa, the theatrical company Barraca was created on March 3, 1976, presented as “a cooperative of theater professionals”, with the aim of making “a authentically popular repertoire”.
“ The theater itself does not transform anything into anyone, but can contribute modestly, along with other activities of poetic agitation, to help see and understand why and how the social transformation that will make them move from the state of need to the state of freedom ", according to the official page.
The play “The Golden City”, premiered on March 4, 1976 at the Almadense Academy (Almada, Setúbal), is the first show in the history of A Barraca.
With almost a hundred productions, the majority of Portuguese dramaturgy, A Barraca claims to have fulfilled the goal of being “a theater group that is witness and part activates its country and its time”.
Over 50 years, the company staged “great classics and contemporarys” by authors such as Dario Fo, Sophocles, Woody Allen, Gogol, Tennessee Williams and Bernard Shaw.