Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew1993
(Post 2467845)
I don't profess to know a bloody thing about this show, I would like someone to explain it to me, in a nutshell, but I'm right now downloading the full show from 2 july.
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It is too crazy, I myself don't understand it. I mean, I know the language and the meaning of the words the actors are saying, but I cannot get very far to comprehend why they mix together the things that they mix.
What I do know from my Literature classes that I did not like very much, is that by around 1922 there was a movement of many artistic branches called "Modernismo". Some important landmarks of it are a painting one of the actresses recreates at the beginning of the play (after the street stuff), and a book of Oswald de Andrade, "The Cannibal Manifesto". It seems that its philosophy has something to do with 'eating' and incorporating other cultures the same way aborigine indians used to eat their defeated enemies expecting to get to themselves the good qualities those enemies had.
It seems it has also something to do with Brazil's history. Brazil is a mix of different cultures considering they received lots of immigrants from Europe and Asia between the World Wars. And a theme that is common to other plays is that they seem sad that when the Portuguese discovered the naked indians, it was the Portuguese who put clothes on the indians, instead of the indians getting the Portuguese - and Europeans in general - naked. In fact, right before they put those flags on some people of the audience, they refer to Brazil being 'covered' instead of 'dis-covered'.
And now it is my own interpretation that those flags covering the bodies represent the different ideologies getting us apart. The naked guy says "What hindered us from the truth were the clothes - that which is impermeable between the exterior world and the interior world." Then the actress calls the audience to strip: "It is now! The time has come! Those of you who want to get warm in this [polar/not so polar/solar - it depends on how cold it has been in São Paulo during the day] winter, come dis-cover your own body... by eating of the taboos THE taboo: getting naked!"
Then when the people are all naked they are all equal and can better see the truth; at some point the naked actor who shows a close up of his anus says and people sing: "The divine illumination! We are all... human creatures... equals! We are all... human creatures... equals!"
They say that before Europe 'covered' Brazil, Brazil (of the naked indians) had dis-covered happiness. There is a reference to Rousseau or something.
You guys might also want to read the following review. My intention when I started this reply was to just share this link, but then I started writing my own stuff (and now I see that perhaps I know more than I thought; but I still think it is totally crazy). It is the best review I have come across, even though (or specially because) it is written by someone not from Brazil. All the nakedness and specially that the audience gets naked is largely left unsaid in the brief reviews or ads that appear in local magazines and newspapers. I wonder if some of the people who end up naked had had no idea something like that might happen.
toriajane77.blogspot.com/2011/07/macumba-antropofaga.html
Oh, by the way, 2011 in the link reminds me that, obviously, the review was of the (slightly?) different version of the phay that was presented during 2011/2012.
