Coming from the Portuguese, colonialism, stereotypes and ridicularization of Brazilians never ends, it renews itself, ecologically.
On November 1st, the Portuguese theater director Jorge Louraço Figueira came to EASTAP 2024 to present to the public “Amazonia, massacre, memory”, what was not a paper, but two theater works which plot and title were based on the Brazilian Amazônia, the largest natural reserve and biosystem in the world, which enjoys from international environmental protection.
The 1st play, was one made by the company, from Porto, named Mala Voadora, in 2017. According to Louraço, the theatre play was a satirical kind based on the research of some Portuguese that had travelled to explore “that place”, as he calls the Amazonas, one of the 26 Brazilian States. He continues by saying that after these researches made by Mala Voadora staff, exploring locally the “jungle” during one month, they came back to Portugal with the ideas and materials to make the play. Then, Louraço shows parts of the text of "Amazonia" made by the Portuguese company: surprisingly, the text is totally written in English, a language that is not spoken in Brazil, much less in the State of Amazonas, where, apparently, this research would have been carried out, at least, in the fiction.
Then, Louraço, repeating many colonialist jargons, terms and fixed ideologies, but in a recycled way, given the Brazilian ecology plot, calls to the presentation what he said as being a “Brazilian breakfast" scene (1st and 2nd photos), entitled as "Life as it is", a kind of parody and intertextuality game with the chronicle of Brazilian literature called "A vida como ela é", written by the carioca playwriter Nelson Rodrigues.
As Louraço states, it was the first time in European theater that indigenous people were presented as “objects”... Furthermore, he relates it to something called as the “genocide of the Brazilian language”, represented by some kind of "collective suicide" of indigenous people, in an attempt to make some parallelism with structures of repetition that did not appear, but were associated by him with “Brazilian soap operas”, the act of “recycling” a text and the “Brazilian costumes”. For him, this eco-piece brings some “ecological” context, fitting into the “ecosystem” theme of the Conference, simply because it shows scenes settled in an Atlantic Forest.
When he was asked about the sarcasm and stereotypical way of doing it and what could be the opinion of Brazilians in relation to the Portuguese play, the theater director said that, although the work in question had not yet been taken to the Brazilian stages to be seen, some Brazilians, who saw the work performed in Portugal, became perplexed, horrified and outraged, generating great debates immediately after the exhibitions of the play.
The 2nd theatre play brought by Louraço, in the ecological context and using the Brazilian Amazônia plot and its native people as the theme, is a work made by the Swiss director and playwriter Milo Rau, called “Antigone in Amazônia”, debuted in 2024.
However, unlike the first work which contains a pejorative proposition and with a colonialist eco-vision, Milo Rau's work ennobles the native Brazilian people, by mixing factual scenes, documentaries, the active participation of social-activists from the MST movement and the native indigenous people, inhabitants of the Brazilian biome.
In the end, respect for people, for the diversity and especially for what is preached, but not done, as ecologically and politically correct, should prevail.
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