Varieties mark centenary with visits, exhibition, theatre and cinema

Nthe centenary of one of the most emblematic rooms of Park Mayer, the celebrations start at 1:30 pm with a guided tour of the building, currently renovated by the studio of the architect Manuel Aires Mateus, which will allow access to areas usually reserved to the public, such as backstage, scene accesses and technical areas.

This initiative proposes a trip through the theatre spaces and its connection to the cultural life of the city, being free entry by prior registration, with limited capacity, reveals the municipal company of Equipment Management and Cultural Animation – EGEAC Lisboa Cultura, in a statement.

At 18:00, the book “100 Years of Variety” will be presented, authored by journalist and researcher Paula Gomes Magalhães, with edition of the National Press – Casa da Coin, which traces the path of the Variety Theatre since its inauguration in 1926, until today.

The work, which will be available for sale in the box office and in the theater’s online bookstore from that day, contextualizes the role of the Variety Theatre in affirming the Mayer Park as a center of entertainment and artistic creation.

Paula Gomes Magalhães has dedicated her work to the study of the old Lisbon and the relationship of the city with the theater, and is also author of the books “Belle Époque – The Lisbon of Finals of the 19th century and the Beginning of the 20th century” (2014) and “The Mad Years 20 – Diário da Lisboa Bohemia” (2021), in which the Park Mayer already occupied a prominent place.

After the presentation of the book, the exhibition “A Place called Varieties”, curated by José Daniel Ferreira and Mário Nascimento, of the Lisbon Museum, will be inaugurated, a show that gathers objects, testimonies and records of the last hundred years of theater activity, including audio testimonies of spectators, technicians and artists who have passed there over the last century.

The opening of the show also includes a special participation of the singer Cláudia Pascoal, who recreates six songs that had their first performance in the Theatre Varieties, including “Smelling Well, Smells Lisbon”.

Coproduced by the Varieties Theatre and the Lisbon Museum, the show will occupy the 'foyer', the 'lounge' and the corridor of the first floor of the building and will be patent until August 15, 2027, with free entrance.

At 7:15, the facade of the theater hosts the vertical dance show “AXIS”, with Magalie Lanriot and Morgane Stephan.

According to the organization, performance presents two suspended bodies that “create a relational field in which proximity, distance and confrontation continually reconfigure space”, with the building as a structuring axis, in a dialogue between body, architecture and city.

The program continues with the debut of “VARIETIES (...as an opera bubbly, erotic and satirical)”, creation of Fernando Heitor, Flávio Gil and João Paulo Soares, a musical spectacle and played live, designed especially for the centenary.

The show revisits, between fantasy and memory, a century of history of the Variety Theatre through ten characters linked to the Mayer Park, who assume themselves as guardians of this collective memory.

“VARIETIES (...like a bubbly, erotic and satirical opera)” will be on stage until August 16 and is integrated into the programming of the Almada Festival, which takes place between July 9 and 17.

The schedule of the day ends with the exhibition of the film “O Parque das Ilusões” (1963), by Perdigão Queiroga, in a copy recently digitized by the Portuguese Cinemateca, beginning at 21:30.

This exhibition opens the cycle “Rostos do Varieties”, which runs until 31 July with seven free sessions in different spaces, including the Cinecapitólio Rooftop and Cinema São Jorge, in a partnership between the Capitol, the Cinemateca Portuguesa, the Cinema São Jorge and the Cinebox.

The cycle brings together films with outstanding interpreters from the history of Varieties, such as António Silva, Beatriz Costa, Hermínia Silva, Laura Alves, Maria Matos, Milú and Ribeirinho.

Opened in 1926 and being the second room to be born in Mayer Park, the Variety Theatre was for decades one of the main stages of the magazine theater, comedies, farces, zarzuelas and operettas, welcoming artists who marked the history of Portuguese theater.

Reopened in October 2024 after renovation, the space was again assumed as a municipal room dedicated to performing arts, with diverse programming that includes names such as Pedro Penim, Ricardo Neves-Neves, Cristina Carvalhal, Miguel Raposo, Marina Mota, Rita Ribeiro and United Artists, as well as international musicals such as “Rent” and “In The Heights” and festivals such as the Around Classic and FIMFA – International Festival of Marionetas and Animated Forms.