No Yogurt for the Dead

Tiago Rodrigues draws inspiration from a true story about his father. Rogério Rodrigues, a respected Portuguese journalist, began writing a newspaper article during his final days in the hospital. Every day, his father worked in his notebook on a story about his experiences as a terminal patient. Both Tiago and his father knew this would be his last article. 

After his father's death, Tiago opened the notebook. It contained only a few lines and dots, a few scribbles, like the abstract drawings of a toddler. Now, Tiago wants to depict those unwritten pages of his father's final work. By combining memories, songs, and fragments of his father's writings, he builds a performance that aims to be a small victory over death. 

Each scene is a playful variation on the theme of parting. The stage forms a surreal landscape in which hospital beds glide across an icy sea, as a metaphor for the tumult of life. With music and poetry as the grammar of a theatre that can find joy in even the saddest stories. 

• The first ambition of Portuguese actor and director Tiago Rodrigues was to perform with people who wanted to create shows together. His encounter with the Belgian theatre company tg Stan in 1997, at the age of 20, definitively confirmed his attachment to the absence of hierarchy in a creative group. There he developed his acting, dramatic writing and love for the collective. The freedom to perform and make decisions that he was given in that time would forever influence his future performances. In July 2021, he was appointed future director of the Festival d'Avignon, while presenting Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard in the Cour d'Honneur du Palais des Papes. Tiago Rodrigues has previously appeared at Kaaitheater in productions including Antony & Cleopatra (2016) and By Heart (2016). No Yogurt for the Dead/Histoire(s) du Théatre VI was also selected for Het Theaterfestival 2025.