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BRECHT AS THE MYTICAL REFERENCE INSIDE THE BRAZILIAN´S
REGIONAL CONTEXTS
Texto apresentado na Conferencia Annual Asociation of Theatre
in High Education ATHE/USA 1998
André Carreira
Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina
This article constitutes a first approacch to understand the influences
of the german director Bertolt Brecht in the regional theatrical contexts
in Brazil. Before anything else it is necessary to say that in the vast
of Brazilian territory the theatrical phenomenon has great diversity,
besides that, keeps one of its main characteristics the fact of a pole
that concentrates in excessive way, the theatrical activities of larger
load existing. This polarization is formed by the articulation of the
axis Rio de JaneiroSão Paulo, although the latter is predominant
in theatrical productions.
In the other areas of the country theatrical movements doesnt have
professionals markets. Even with intense theatrical life, cities like
as Belo Horizonte, Londrina, Porto Alegre and Salvador, don't have circuits
of wide professional shows, just some groups in these cities can organize
in a profitable presentations. That´s why, in these contexts, and
in the urban nucleus of smaller dimensions, the axis of the theatrical
movement is organized benning with amateur groups.
The main characteristic of theese theatrical contexts is that, in times
of postmodernity, the idea of integration of regional cultures appears
as more than a desirable reality, as something tangible, we see that the
theatrical practices of medium and small Brazilian cities, demonstrate
that isolation persists as fundamental line in the given processes of
theatrical production which are done by an infinity of theatrical groups
that are among the desire of doing a "professional" theater
and the fact of makig a possible theater. Regional cultural context is
more than a simple field of defining residual folkloric production of
a certain area, this regional cultural context represents an complex net
of relationships and partner-cultural entails (vinculos), that are defined
as part of cultural practices identified by its own makers. This context
is defined, more than the partner-space components, than socioeconomic
aspects of identity (Canclini, 1995).
Theater that is out of the dominant axis is fruit, mainly, from the effort
of its artists, whose practice acquires characteristics of a militancy
that facilitates the very existence of this daily theatrical; precisely
that it is interesting to analyze the repercussions, so much of the dramatic
work of Bertolt Brecht's thought (pensamento) in these context, once these
practices have, in some moment of its history, a decisive relationship
with the brechtians ideas.
Brecht and the political theater in Brazil
The ideas of the Brecht arrived in Brazil, according to Wolfgang Bader,
for three roads: "first for the French translations used by the modernist
writers, starting from the forties, to present the author through poems
and theoretical theses; second, through German exiles, that began several
theatrical activities in the forties, mainly in São Paulo, city
where is the first staging of a Brecht piece in Brazil occured (Terror
and Poverty of III Reich); third, bythe direct contact that several theater
professionals and Brazilian critics had in their trips to Europe with
pieces of Brecht when they attended French assemblies or encenações
of Berliner Ensemble in France" (Bader, 1987).
But, these were causuals encounters. Contact with Brecht´s work
only became stronger in the end of the fifties with some assemblies that
obtained good repercussion, such as the stanging of The Good Soul of Setsuan
direct by Flaminio Bollini Cerri. In the 60´s Brecht found the definitive
pulse in the Brazilian scene, especially, after the military coup in April
of 1964. In 1968, troubled with the students rebellion, we reach (alcançamos)
the top of stagins brechtians dramaturgy.
It is exactly this that looks paradox, and ask us for some reflection.
We can consider paradoxical the fact that the pieces of Brecht began to
be mounted with more insistence when the military government became more
authoritarian and repressive. It stands out that the ascent of fights
of this period was characterized by being eminently petit bourgeois juvenile,
while the fights and labor and popular mobilizations corresponded immediately
a years previous to the coup of 1964.
As the researcher Iná Camargo de Costa mentions in her book The
Hour of the Epic Theater in Brazil, Brecht supposed that the epic theater
would be sustained "by a powerful social movement, interested in
the free discussion of its vitallity, and capable problems of defending
its interests against adverse tendencies" (Brecht apud Camargo, 1996:
53). The German playwright´s statement shows that he understood
its theater as an offensive art that one would see strengthened by the
ascent of the workers' fights. But, as it is clear, the situation of Brazil
in this period, represented a descent of the popular fights with the particularity
of a potent movement juvenile that separately resisted the consolidation
of the autocratic regime.
Evidently, the assemblies of the brechtian texts were given as part of
the resistance process against to the dictatorship, representing more
an answer to the reactionary regime, than a manifestation that accompanied
a process of fights of the proletariat. Thus, the dialetic and inquier
character, proposed by Brecht as fundamental element of the theatrical
act, was materialized, in that moment, much more in direct denounces of
the regime, than in an instrument of critical reflection, because the
audiences of these shows was already in opposition to the dictatorship.
The act of choosing the brechtian dramaturgy meant to opt for a combat
position against the dictatorship and turn it public. This kind of attitude
extended to the first years of the decade of 80´s, shortly before
the democratic restoration.
The repercussion of Bertolt Brecht's pieces under the political circumstances
in the 60/70 will tell us a lot about the type of influence of the thought
of Brecht that will impregnate the Brazilian theatrical class and the
many angles from which brechtian work will be read.
When authors Ian Michlaski and Sábato Magaldi, affirmed that some
of the proposals of Boal, such as the "system coringa", present
explicit influences of the concept of the "estrangement effect",
it is more important to analyze other class of influences as they say
less with respect to technical aspects and more subjects to ideological.
"The largest contribution of Brecht for our theater are not even
the pieces that we saw in scene, but in its vision of the world, that
passes at least so much for its theoretical writings as for its dramaturgy.
If the part more specifically technique of its theory doesn't seem to
have contributed a lot to the scenic enrichment of our theater, its vision
of the world, of people, of the social organization and, of course, of
the theatre, transmitted through its anthological theoretical writings,
it influenced decisive and very positively the heads of my generation
and of the generation that has proceeded..." (Michalski, 1987; 229).
This class influence that Michalski aims to demonstrates that Brecht used
as a type of paradigm of the theater of transformative action.
Fernando Peixoto, great specialist of Brecht in Brazil, analyzing the
German author's influence in the Brazilian theater, he discovers in the
manifestations of the popular culture the existence of primitive gérmens
that would be identified with the roots of brechtian theatre. For Peixoto
the accomplished attempts, the sixties of affirming the foreing character
of the proposals of Brecht while a "exotic doctrine" they were
a misunderstanding because "some spontaneous manifestations of the
Brazilian popular art (they are) very clear manifestations, that at their
core are a simplified version and embryonic of an entire aesthetic theory
and of an entire posture, of world vision, of an entire possibility to
use the representation, in the case theater, but also the cultural process
as a whole, as a popular instrument, a dialogue instrument, of critical
reflection, of participation of our society "(Peixoto, 1987). From
this point of view, the theater of Brecht, is the carrier of this natural
quality of the popular culture. For it to be considered so, it would be
so completely identified as a learned manifestation that emanates of the
elements own fundacionais of the popular culture, that could not be exotic
to our culture, because, it would be related with the essential elements
of the same. Certainly, this point of view identifies in the popular thought
a reflexive characteristic and dialética transformadora that it
would deserve a larger discussion. However, the exiguidade of this article
doesn't allow to deepen this discussion. He/she just fits to affirm that
the manifestations of the popular culture can come as plenty of critics,
as it is observed in the carnival parades, in the speeches of the great
comic poulares, in the satire coditiana of the streets, without however,
to acquire this character of reflexive questionamento that it operates
at the level of the understanding of the reality with direct repercussions
at the level of the political action, just as he/she wanted Brecht. Perhaps
be interesting to reaffirm that Brecht arrived to Brazil just as all the
theatrical theories that they dominated, so much the century XIX as the
XX, for the door of entrance of the European thought that was always the
responsible person for the renewal of thinking vernacular.
The task of identifying the concepts or procedures of the theater dialético
with the local popular culture was one of the objectives of several of
those directors that already set up texts of Brecht in the sixties. The
search of a to say brechtiano starting from the Brazilian culture translated
herself in different attempts of doing a theater that proposed the estrangement
effect using for that the referring ones cultural of Brazil. That, many
authors insisted several times on finding in the great popular comic actors
the true paradigms of a manifestation unconscious brechtiana (Michalski,
1987). Many were those that tried to do a national Brecht, to find so
much in the dramaturgia as in the texts theoretical elements that could
be identified as a national product. However, these searches were always
in vain. The texts and proposals of Brecht didn't ask its nationalization,
they were just available to the teatristas as it is all the theatrical
tradition, to be played, used, interfered, finally, to be synthesized
with the theatrical experience that it is developed in every historical
moment, in each geographical and cultural context.
In the theatrical context of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the
name Brecht became synonym of political commitment, symbol of a theater
politically combative. Starting from this mechanism he/she gave him a
process of mitificação of the German director's illustration.
This process of mitificação impulsou the groups adopt it
procedures and practices that were, in last analysis, big responsible
for the conformação of a concept of political theater in
Brazil, that it can be expressed as a theater that reproduced procedures
considered associated brechtianos, predominantly, you form it of the popular
culture. This theater type was considered, later on, as an immanent phenomenon
of the partner-political conditions of the continent American south.
Observing this process mitificador sees that he worked through the elimination
of the existent mediations between the practices of the agents mitificadores
and its ideological speeches (As he/she affirms Roland Barthes, the myth
it doesn't hide anything, its function it is of deforming, not of doing
to disappear).
This mitificação gave him in the mark of a resistance attitude
adopted by those realizadores that one saw forced to reconstruct its theatrical
speeches in the adverse conditions of the authoritarian regime. This appropriation
parcializada was summed up while it leaves of an aesthetic project that
it proposed the articulation of these aesthetic proposals mentioned previously
with own elements of the Brazilian culture, as an attempt of building
a new road inside of the national cultural mark. The arguments that were
shaken as vindicative of these abordagens should be evaluated starting
from such concrete facts as the enormous lack, in the 60, of translations
to the Portuguese of the work of Brecht, of the short life of CPCs (approximately
2 years) that were fundamental nuclei of these experiences, and of the
political repression the several theatrical realizadores committed in
this process.
If we drove our attention for the referring ones mentioned, we can notice
that the movement of CPCs accomplished experiences of street theater "after
tentative frustadas of contact with other popular publics out of the ambit
of the middle class of the south zone carioca" (Garcia, 1990: 102).
And that the actions of groups as him Shop and him Arena was bounded to
the closed theatrical space of the rooms. Its character politizante was
restricted to the contact with a faithful public, committed politically,
but, reduced to a middle class section (students, liberal professionals
and intellectuals), to which cannot consider as significant experiences
of popular theater. There are not doubts of the political and aesthetic
repercussions of the theatrical practices of these two groups, but, he/she/it
cannot attribute to them more than a paper estimulador for those that
intended the break with the structures of the theatrical market and they
looked for to build alternatives creative polticamente committed in new
social spaces. The groups from São Paulo of theater of periphery
of the seventies (Garcia, 1990), copies can be considered in what he/she
refers its attempts in the sense of moving forward in direction to a popular
theater of resistance starting from the approach with new social nuclei
and of the use of different types of physical spaces.
The Regional Theatrical Contexts
The lacks of information on the theater in the such big healthy regional
cultural contexts that is possible to observe as he/she/it is going building
immense defasagens among the theatrical processes in the metropolitan
axis of Rio and São Paulo and in the cities of the Brazilian interior.
Thus, the theater of the interior is built starting from information that
arrive to these contexts in a dispersed and occasional way. The bridges
of the mass communications didn't get to supply, in the case of the theater,
the emptiness caused by the distances of artistic development that mark
the diversity of the Brazilian areas.
In these regional theatrical contexts we found a marginalidade situation
that are caused by the isolation and also for ausence of a profitable
labor market for actors and directors. Consequently, the theatrical life,
in these contexts, flows in an uncertain and irregular, certain way before
everything for the decision of the own teatristas of maintaining its own
theatrical activity.
If the theater of the regional contexts, historically conformed to starting
from the effective models, first in the old capital, Rio de Janeiro, soon
in the metropolis from São Paulo, and now in the axis Rio-São
Paulo, it could not have happened differently. The absorption of more
this European model. The brechtina model was considered as paradigm of
the political theater and many people believed that committed theater
they have necessary to stang texts of Brecht. We could say that the simple
mention of Brecht´s name won an extraordinary significance that
by itself already represented a combative attitude.
The condition of isolation of the theatre makers of the regional cultural
contexts was, largely, responsible for an approach to those experiences
that, in the sixties, they took as referenciais the theater of Russian
agit-prop and Erwin Piscator's formulations and Bertolt Brecht. In fact,
we can consider that the experimentation from the 60/70, although it has
not gone a lot besides the employment of fragments of the political and
aesthetic speech of Brecht and of the use of some own procedures of the
agit-prop, it conformed an ideological mark in the field of the theater.
And it was that that propriciou that several groups of the regional contexts
sat down bases for the search of a committed theater and that went intervention
instrument in brazilian social reality. This it is looked for it owed,
in the case of good part of the groups, to the fact that these groups
needed to assume day-to-day combat attitudes to conquer the minimum necessary
conditions for its theatrical practices.
Brecht as ideological fuel
What does the brechtian proposal means for those theatre makers that are
in the regional contexts? Evidently, these teatristas has in its own creative
activity a militant practice, because, to keep their artistic projects
are forced to a permanent fight against the difficulties that he/she represents
to do theater out of the metropolitan axis. To win the adversities is
a constant in the life of who makes theater for the whole country, but,
distant of Rio and São Paulo this same activity means to fight
still against obstacles larger.
The contact of the groups with the work of Brecht is desiqual and diversified,
but, it is before everything fragmentary and in everything parcial, mainly
as a consequence of the process mitificador explicitado previously
In this case, this kind synthesis of theater and politics that is organized
in Augusto Boal's bibliographical production, executed a fundamental paper.
Because, to weigh of not doing great direct references to Bertolt Brecht's
ideas, they were these texts the ones that first they approached concepts
of a political theater to the young makers of the interior that began
its creative practices in the years 70/80.
Here we may reflect on a recurrent characteristic of the regional theatrical
movements: the cities that lack of the minimum professionalism structure,
have a theater that floats its accomplishment level and activity according
to the pulse of those creators that bet its lives to do theater. While
voluntariosamente, some artists make an effort the movement it is dynamic,
but, when these give up to follow some more profitable career, refluxos
appears in the accomplishments and in the strength of the movement. It
is common to study the theatrical life of these outlying cities and to
discover that those that were actors and or important directors in the
previous decade, today they carry out functions in a trade, they work
in a bank or they are employees of official cultural organs. Thus, these
movements, road-of-rule, they don't count with referring that are acting
centrally for many years. It is this characteristic that forces us to
analyze these theatrical movements as a some kind of system that is always
in restructuring and redefinição, therefore, always in search
of models fundacionais.
We observed that the procedures employees in Galileu Galileu's assembly
driven by Chico Expedito in Brasília in 1979, run across us with
that the director idealized a work process that involved even the composition,
for the actors, of histories of the characters' life imposing an immersion
in the psychology of the same ones. This way an own procedure of a focus
stanislavskiano was used, when supposedly a vinculação was
looked for with the proposals brechtianas. This is just an example dentre
the many possible, that is good to demonstrate as the reading of Brecht
it was done in an absolutely complicated and fragmentary way.
Doloris Simões de Almeida, when investigating the interest of a
group of Florianópolis in setting up Brecht in the eighties, marks
the words of Isnard de Azevedo that indicate "the attempt of the
group Loquacious Dromedary is looking for the historic moment, the ideological
argues, and the political comprmisse with the immediate social reality"
(Simões of Almeida, 1987). After a wide description of the process
of creation of the show and of the characterization of the reception,
so much of the public as of the press, the author reaches the conclusion
that the fundamental element of this experience is that "staging
(...) of the Loquacious Dromedary it was an attempt of accepting proposed"
(Simões of Almeida, 1987). We could say then that, in if being
about an staging of 1981, the "county" a late dialogue began
with Brecht.
Both examples evidence that the groups looked for in Brecht answers, models,
but, they approached mainly through its symbolic value
When we spoke about Brecht in the regional context it interests the relationship
of the teatristas much less with the elements of the theater dialetic,
and the concepts of the epic poet, than with the understanding of the
mythical referencial that he represents.
The endless discussions on the dimensions of the verfremdung concept (extranhamento)
they don't conform a fundamental objects of the approach of Brecht from
the isolation of the regional culture. Thus, the most important won't
be to discuss with accuracy as the theatrical groups take to the scene
Bertolt Brecht's theater, but, as its social and artistic practices are
moved by from the ideological model proposed by Brecht, or in fact, for
the great lines of this model. Lines that are noticed under a general
formulation that could be expressed as "the need to face the powerful
ones starting from the unit of those subdued." As it is easy to observe,
this quite generic formulation constitutes a very wide sphere of possibilities.
Under this referring one we can place an enormous range of combative attitudes.
From the fights among social sections until the conflicts between the
outlying theatrical systems and the central ones. We see a contact point
then with thinking brechtian, but, such wide that only guard a distant
reference. Even so, that was and it is, enough as element that gives pulse
to the theatrical practices of these contexts. Consequently, the readings
of the objectives of the theater proposed in the brechtian speech don't
imply, necessarily, at once of assuming positions of political combat
under a focus of social classes, except in an understanding of doing theatrical
as social task of wide spectrum. It is on this base that the justification
speech is articulated that sustains great part of doing theatrical in
the territory of the regional, same culture when the pieces taken to the
scene and the aesthetic models are brechtians.
Without the pretense of feeling that Brecht referencial, or the theater
dialetic, they serve or not, as aesthetic models for the theater of the
regional contexts, it is important to highlight as a mitification process,
that began there in the sixties, it is unfolded in a progressive way and
it contributes with the opening of possibilities to the consolidation
of the theatrical systems peripheral of Brazil. And that is essential,
because, this outlying theater has a singular relevance in the constitution
of the net of manifestations that they conform the cultural mark of the
regionality.
Reference bibliography
Antelo, Raúl. 1987. The Modernists Read Brecht. In Brecht in Brazil:
Experiences and Influences. Rio de Janeiro. Paz and Earth
Baczko, Bronislaw. 1991. Imaginary Los Sociales. Buenos Aires. Nueva Visión.
Bader, Wolfgang. 1987. Brecht in Brazil, An Alive Project. In Brecht in
Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Ed. Paz and Earth.
Camargo Costa, Iná. 1996. The Hour of the Epic Theater in Brazil.
They are Pauilo. Ed. Graal.
Duvignaud, Jean. 1980. Sociology of the Theater. Mexico. Fondo of Cultura
Económica.
Ferreira, Maria Nazareth and others. 1995. Globalização
and Cultural Identity in América Latina. São Paulo. CEBELA
Garcia Canclini, Nestor. 1993. Hybrid cultures. Buenos Aires. Ed. Sudamericana
Garcia, Silvana. 1990. Theater of Militância. São Paulo.
Publishing Perspective.
Kühner, Maria Helena. 1987. Amateur theater: X-ray of a Reality (1974-1984).
Rio de Janeiro. Ministry of the Culture / INACEN.
Michalski, Ian. 1987. The Paper of Brecht in the Brazilian Theater. In
Brecht in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro. Ed. Paz and Earth.
Pavis, Patrice. 1980. Diccionario del Theater. Barcelona. Paidós
Comunicación.
Peixoto, Fernando. 1987. The Paper of Brecht in the Brazilian Theater.
In Brecht in Brazil.. I Laugh the one of January. Ed. Paz and Earth.
Simões of Almeida, Doloris Ruth. 1987. Brecht in the County: Attempt
of Accepting Proposed. In Brecht in Brazil: Experiences and Influences.
Rio de Janeiro. Paz and Earth
Several. 1969. Theaters y Politicizes. Buenos Aires. Ed. of La Flor.
Villegas, Juan. 1984. "El speech-theatrical latinoamericano y el
critical speech: Algunas strategic reflexiones." In Latin American
Theatre Review. (Fall) Kansas. University of Kansas. p. 5-12.
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