"Dead Poets Society" sells out eight consecutive months at Teatro da Trindade

Everyone who has seen Dead Poets Society has carried a little of it away with them. Released in 1989, it is one of those rare films capable of spanning generations like few others, and certainly one of the most beloved of all time.

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The character of teacher John Keating, immortalised on the big screen by Robin Williams, has now moved to the stage in a performance by Diogo Infante that is drawing thousands of fans to Teatro da Trindade in Lisbon, where one sold-out show follows another.

Premiered in April, the production was initially meant to close in August, but its success has already forced two extensions. It is now scheduled to run until the end of the year, yet getting a ticket is impossible: every performance is already sold out.

At the start of 2027, the play will go on tour around the country and may later return to Lisbon.

What explains this success? The film left many viewers with a nostalgic feeling: "We see grandparents bringing grandchildren who have never seen the film, parents who saw the film with their children, now bringing them to show them this," says director Hélder Gamboa, of Tenda Produções, who is staging the play in partnership with Teatro da Trindade.

Gamboa adds that the script and the cast, headed by veterans Diogo Infante and Virgílio Castelo, are also key to attracting audiences: "This is a text we were needing at this moment. It is a text that gives us hope, that makes us want to be more than someone who simply belongs to a flock, that makes us want to have wings, to want to fly and to want to be ourselves," he says.

The play is a stage adaptation of the film's screenplay, written for the theatre by the screenwriter himself, Tom Schulman, who at the time was honoured for it.

Diogo Infante and the "legacy" of Robin Williams

Diogo Infante is one of Portugal's most highly regarded actors and also the artistic director of Teatro da Trindade, and he was instrumental in bringing the play to this stage.

As for the task of playing Keating, he knows it means taking on the responsibility of dealing with the memory of Robin Williams, one of the American actors most admired by audiences, who took his own life in 2014 at the age of 63.

"It is a challenge, on the one hand, because I have to, in some way, deal with the memory of Robin Williams's unforgettable performance, but on the other hand it is a profound pleasure, because it is an exceptionally well-written text, of great relevance today, which allows me, five nights a week, to speak words that are inspiring and motivating. Working with this young cast is truly refreshing, so it has been a pleasure," Infante tells Euronews.

After a full eight months of performances in Lisbon, five days a week, the play will go on tour around the country from January 2027 (source in Portuguese) (including 16 performances at Teatro Sá da Bandeira in Porto, already completely sold out) and may later return to Lisbon.

So many performances of the same text - does that become tiring for an actor? Infante is adamant: "Working in a tax office for 25 years, from nine to five, that is what is tiring. I have the privilege of working in the arts, I work in theatre, I work with emotions and passion, with full houses. That is a privilege I embrace every day. If there are days when I am more tired or less inspired, I take a deep breath and go on, because it is my duty," he says.

Diogo Infante as John Keating and Virgílio Castelo as the school's headmaster, the stern and feared Gale Nolan, lead a cast that also includes Diogo Mesquita as Mr Perry and a group of eight young actors recruited from various drama schools.

The film launched the careers of actors such as Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard, who played Professor Keating's students. This Portuguese stage version also promises to launch these young talents.

At 23, Rui Pedro Silva plays Neil Perry, the student passionate about theatre whose fate, in the story, changes the lives of his teacher and classmates forever.

Rui Pedro already knew the film, but chose not to watch it again so as not to constrain his interpretation of the character: "I wanted to distance myself from the way the story was told at the time, but it is a film that has remained very vivid in my mind and that was very important for my development as an actor, as a person and as a teenager," he tells Euronews.

The young actor sees himself in the character and says he is not the only one in the cast to feel that way: "Each of us was also chosen because of the characteristics we share with our characters. I am very much a dreamer, very sensitive; I think I am a little like Neil," he admits.

Dead Poets Society is on at Teatro da Trindade until 20 December.