No Theatre today

Stories of Saudade

Nobody knows the exact number of closed or derelict theatres and cinema-theatres in Portugal. This is the story of one of them.

Episodio 2 – No Theatre today
|Created and produced by Marco António
|Translated and narrated by Lucy Pepper
|Official theme tune: “Fado do Sonho“ – Pensão Flor
|Additional music: Lee Rosevere | Orquestra Popular de Paio Pires
|The Portuguese version of this episode can be found at “Histórias de Portugal”
(narrated by Marco António)

The Salvador Marques Theatre in Alhandra was inaugurated in 1905 but today, there is no Theatre. About eight decades after it opened, this auditorium closed its doors, possibly for ever. It’s not a unique case in Portugal – quite the opposite – and every theatre has a story to be told. We tell this story as an example of many others in so many villages, towns and cities in Portugal, in which the theatres and cinema-theatres that have closed over the years. If this is the case where you live, tell us and show us how it was and how it is now. For example, you could put it in the comments on our Facebook page, or by email at [e-mail].

Years after the doors closed, some people were able to see inside the Salvador Marques Theatre. Three of them shared with us, and now you, what they saw. The photographers, Rui Almeida e Diogo Ramos (whom we thank for allowing us to show their photos here, see the galleries below) and Casimiro Gonçalves – our guest in this episode.

Photos by Rui Almeida

Photos by Diogo Ramos

When we went to record the interview for this episode, we grabbed the chance to photograph the outside of the building.

Our thanks to Casimiro Gonçalves* for his availability to tell the story of Salvador Marques Theatre and for all his help with documentation and images we needed to make this episode.

Thanks also to Ana Brás, the architect, who helped us with the data that gave a real picture of the dimension of this reality, at a national level.

* Casimiro Gonçalves is working on a master’s thesis in Museology and Museography at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon University, precisely on the subject of the Salvador Marques Theatre. He is also a member of a public facebook group dedicated to the theatre, called “Teatro Salvador Marques: Queremos ResTarado!“, through which we found him to be interviewed for this episode.