TOM AT THE FARM to Make London Premiere at Barbican This Fall
Armando Babaioff produces the Portuguese-language drama, directed by Rodrigo Portella, staged on a mud-covered set.
This autumn, Tom at the Farm will arrive at the Barbican Theatre for its London premiere after a journey from a tiny theatre in Rio de Janeiro to a critically acclaimed international theatrical production. Part of the Barbican's autumn/winter 2026 Theatre & Dance season, performances will run Tuesday 13 — Saturday 17 October 2026.
When actor Armando Babaioff first read the preface to Michel Marc Bouchard's play Tom à la ferme, he encountered a sentence that would become the inspiration for the evolution of the production: “Homosexuals learn to lie before they learn to love". Babaioff acquired the rights to the play, assembled the creative team, assumed the role of producer, and created the Brazilian translation. Under the direction of Rodrigo Portella, the production - which premiered in Rio de Janeiro in 2017 - abandoned naturalism in favour of an original, intensely physical theatrical language. The actors perform on permanently unstable ground: a plastic-covered stage layered with mud, which transforms the stage into a symbolic territory upon which the subtext of power, violence, desire, repression, and silence is tangible.
Performed entirely in Portuguese with English surtitles, at the centre of the story is Tom, who travels to his late partner's family farm following his death. Upon arrival, he discovers that the mother never knew about their relationship and is unaware that her son was gay. In order to preserve this secret, Tom becomes trapped in a fragile network of manipulation, physical violence, and psychological control imposed by the deceased's older brother.
Although written in Canada, the play resonated deeply with a Brazil that, in 2017, was experiencing growing political and social polarization, marked by increasingly hostile public discourse and alarming levels of violence against LGBTQIA+ communities.
Tom at the Farm has been performed across Brazil, as well as in Montreal, Avignon, Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh, and Busan, South Korea. After nearly a decade on stage, 27 national and international awards, more than 600 performances, and an audience exceeding 250,000 spectators, Tom at the Farm is “an urgent work in Brazilian theatre ... not just important but necessary" (The Stage, 4*).
Toni Racklin, Barbican Head of Theatre & Dance, says, “The Barbican Theatre has a long history of celebrating Brazilian work, and I am so pleased to continue this tradition with the extraordinary Tom at the Farm. Armando, Rodrigo and the rest of the team have created a piece of theatre which is not only intensely gripping and original, but a production that feels incredibly timely as the world is reckoning with the impact of toxic masculinity and how that continues to affect our most vulnerable communities.”
Armando Babaioff, lead actor and producer of Tom at the Farm, says, “What impresses me most about this journey is not the number of performances (more than 600) or the countries we have visited, but the fact that, over the course of a decade, the production hasn't aged a single day. On the contrary, it has become even more urgent. With every city and every country, I discover new ways in which this story continues to resonate with audiences. Perhaps that is because it speaks to something that remains profoundly relevant: the fear of not being able to be who we truly are, the burden of silence, and the fundamental need to belong. We are living in a time when rights that once seemed firmly established are once again being questioned.
"Bringing Tom at the Farm to the Barbican is both a profound honour and a rare milestone for a Brazilian theatre production. I hope London audiences will find in this story not so much a portrait of Brazil, but rather a reflection of the silent forms of violence that continue to permeate families and societies in different parts of the world.
"After all this time, one thing has become clear to me: the farm merely changes location.”
