Jake Mace
Maria Paula Carreño-Martínez and Marcio Beauclair of Expandido Theatre Group are bringing the strikingly titled KILL YOUR FATHER to the Etcetera Theatre next month as part of the upcoming Voila! European Theatre Festival. The piece aims to expose the limits of patriarchy in our society through the lens of Brazilian Lesbian playwright Grace Passô’s radical reimagining of the Greek tragedy Medea. We caught up with Maria, who will perform the piece, and director Marcio for a pixelated pint to unpack the story and its impact.
You can catch KILL YOUR FATHER at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden as part of Voila! Theatre Festival from November 5th – 6th at 5pm and on November 7th at 9pm. Tickets (£12) are available through the Voila! Theatre Festival Online Box Office.
Jake: Hi Maria Paula and Marcio! Your upcoming Voila! Show has quite the intriguing title – tell us about the origins of the text and what drew you to performing it.
M P & M: Kill Your Father throws the audience right into the middle of some of today’s most urgent conversations: gender-based oppression, toxic masculinity, immigration, cultural clashes, the struggle to belong, and patriarchy as a kind of sickness we still haven’t cured. But it’s not all fire and fury, the show also dives deep into what makes us human: love (maternal, romantic, and everything in between), desire, sex, the need for connection, and the loneliness that comes when we lose it.
In this one-woman show, Grace Passô (one of the most important Black Brazilian feminist playwrights) takes us inside the mind of Medea, the woman who crosses the line from mother to anti-mother in the most extreme act of rebellion imaginable: killing her own children. But this is what this play wants to change. It’s time to flip that narrative. Medea shouldn’t kill her kids. She should kill the patriarchal system that oppresses us all. That’s what drew us to re-tell this story. We’re bringing Medea back to the stage not as a monster, but as a woman reclaiming her power — angry, vulnerable, and ready to fight back.
Jake: The piece covers a myriad of themes including gender based oppression and toxic masculinity, immigration, support networks, patriarchy and more – tell us about your process of merging all of these themes together and translating it to the stage.
M P & M: This play is an act of honouring, a celebration of every woman who has ever been silenced, overlooked, or misunderstood. Medea stands among the most powerful female figures in theatre history (yet, the first time she appeared on stage in ancient Greece, she was performed by a man. That says everything about the world we inherited). It’s time to rewrite that story.
It’s time to reclaim Medea’s voice. To turn her rage into resistance, her pain into power. The era of patriarchy has to end, and we are the ones trying to write what comes next. This is a queer punk-drama act of resistance.
Jake: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
You: The first thing the audience will hear upon entering the space is a heartbeat, as if they’ve returned to their mother’s womb.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
You: Kill Your Father is for the women, the feminists, the immigrants, the exiled, and their allies. We invite all women, all immigrants, and everyone who loves theatre, and the myth of Medea, to join us. To feel. To remember. To confront. To heal.
Jake: With Voila Festival 2025 just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
M P & M: To see and share experiences with the other artists and plays at the Festival.
Voila is all about multiculturalism, it is also a festival that hosts a variety of work that pushes boundaries, both themes that Kill Your Father embraces. We are also thrilled to see this work travel outside of Brazil and Canada for the first time, and be showcased around the world like it deserves to be. It is not cultural specific, it is a message for the masses.
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
M P & M: Instead of Bloody Mary… Bloody Medea!
You can catch KILL YOUR FATHER at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden as part of Voila! Theatre Festival from November 5th – 6th at 5pm and on November 7th at 9pm. Tickets (£12) are available through the Voila! Theatre Festival Online Box Office.
Image Credit: Galactticaaa
