Tiago Rodrigues

As a quintessential political art, theater has always served as a valuable conduit for reminding and updating the timeless demands of a well-ordered state. The pursuit of a fairer world has long been a constant reference point for art, with the theater's focus on justice emerging as a recognizable motif since the archetypal dramaturgy of the great Greek tragedians.

"Upset" is perhaps the most apt and mild description of the emotion evoked by Portuguese director Tiago Rodrigues' play "Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists: in the few days it has been staged in Athens by the Onassis Foundation. The controversial work, set in a dystopian future, raises the question of whether it is right to break the laws of democracy in order to defend it.

One of the world's biggest theatre festivals gets underway on July 5 in the southern French city of Avignon after a year-long hiatus caused by COVID-19, with masks compulsory for audiences but organizers relishing a return to relative normality.