Overdrama was the first text – in this case, a play – that Chris Thorpe wrote for mala voadora. Taking events in progress at the time of writing as a reference, Overdrama portrays a situation of social turmoil, on the verge of a generalised catastrophe. A group of individuals share their personal dramas and, through them, their position, more involved or more distanced, in relation to the events. What appears to be a collection of independent stories turns out to be a single plot: most of the characters were in fact narrating the journey that led to their deaths. Those who are alive are the protagonists of a utopia: the possibility of breaking the cyclicality of history, the possibility of people not ceasing to be revolutionaries when they mature. The show ends with a grandmother (Márcia Breia) sacrificing her life to fulfil a bomb attack.

We also asked Chris Thorpe for this play about revolution to explore narrative resources typical of bourgeois drama: problems in the ‘family’, adultery and other disaffection, the contrast between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’, the quiproquó, happy coincidences and unhappy coincidences, expectation – and a certain pathos of entrances and exits from the scene, which became one of the themes of the staging.