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José Saramago

A critique of a rotten and deeply selfish society


On the centenary of the birth of José Saramago, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, we are staging one of his best-known books: Blindness.


A pandemic is sweeping the globe: a plague of unexplained and incurable blindness. The government applies increasingly repressive and useless restrictions to try to stop the contagion.


Lack of resources and extreme conditions will make people fight to survive but only the most immoral will succeed.


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We talked to Carme Portaceli about doing something together and Saramago's name came up, but it seemed to me too big, too personal, too risky. When I went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette, in the square a homeless man was talking to God and pedestrians were going about their business, as if they couldn't see him, much less hear him. That was when it was clear to me, and looking at Carme I said to her: “blindness”.

Two years have passed since that conversation, two very difficult years. Re-reading Blindness, which at first sight seemed a parable on the human condition in an unlikely scenario, is now our everyday life. Fear, loss, helplessness, hope and freedom had become very present. It was as if, instead of reading, I was remembering.


Nuno Cardoso

• Show included in the season tickets.