Brecht in Brazil?

Attila Clemann (23/11/02)

Brecht in Brazil? A wonderfully absurd idea and somehow strangely fitting. Brecht brought us the Verfremdungseffekt whereby the audience is constantly reminded of the fact that they are in a theatre and watching a show. His goal was to avoid what is referred to as the Aristotelian based theatre which believes in the well made play with clear character and plot development and a suspension of disbelief. Brecht lines his scripts with songs, asides to the audience and a jarring structure to underline his philosophy that the performers should not try to deceive the audience of the fact that everyone is involved in a performance. His ultimate goal was to leave the audience with a clear understanding of a conditioned fault in society and the belief that this fault could be altered through some sort of empowered action.

Working with Brecht’s “The Good Woman of Setzuan” here in Brazil I am tempted to say that we are facing another “effect” that could be called more precisely the “Amazonianeffect”. This is the effect whereby we are never left to forget the fact that we are in Brazil and here things simply work very differently.

Thanks to the Amazonianeffect we have seen our rehearsals riddled with numerous interruptions and setbacks that keep us on our toes, ready for sudden changes in plans. Our first day of rehearsal turned into a heavy discussion on the importance of attendance, as we were missing a third of the group and we had hoped to hand out the roles. Then, we started to rehearse without the text because of various mishaps trying to get to a photocopier on time and run off all the copies we needed. Our schedule says we have the students of Pro-Criança from 8:00 until 12:00 which would normally be a substantial amount of time to work every day. Unfortunately, the Amazonianeffect reminds us that Brazil runs at a different pace and if we manage two hours of solid work without interruption or distraction, we have had a good day. Our rehearsals have been pre-empted by other shows that the dance and percussion company has to do. They have been taken away to see other performances. We found out that two of our main actors can only perform one of the performance dates leaving us no choice but to scrounge up two understudies to perform the second show. The casual attendance on the part of the some of the company members means that some scenes have been choreographed with other actors or even some of us. Our list of props and set pieces, which we need to rehearse with, continues to evade us as there is a rather complicated system of meetings, money transferrals and materials to be bought leaving us with nothing but our bad Portuguese to try to explain to the actors exactly what they are pretending to hold in their hands.

Brecht made sure that his Verfrendungseffekt was in nearly every scene and it seems that nearly every day we have our own dose of the Amazonianeffect. Julie, who is responsible for discussing all matters with the higher-ups of the Movimento Pro-Criança, comes to us with a certain look on her face that we now know means trouble. Her slightly stunned eyes and oddly set smirk warns us that we about to be hit by another Brazilian obstacle. We can only laugh now at the consistent nature of this Amazonianeffect as we meet daily for at least an hour to discuss the latest situation and how to resolve it. Steph’s frustration has boiled over and now simply simmers with a slightly mad giggle as her eyes widen and she inhales her cigarettes more and more deeply in the face of each little Amazonianeffect reminder. If we manage to present Brecht in Portuguese in Brazil under these conditions, we will surely be able to create anything under any circumstances. As Julie noted, working here is like walking with heavy boots on and we will surely find every project from here on in a light breeze in comparison.

Recently we experienced a day where we tried unsuccessfully to be productive despite losing another day of rehearsal with the company. Suddenly we found ourselves in that ever familiar half dazed nearly Zen state which I have seen in many Brazilians. It is that state of calm that Brazilians seem to simply accept that you can’t push a rope and you just have to wait until what needs to get done somehow gets done. Brecht assumed that audiences had a lot to learn through theatre and I expect that we have a lot to learn from doing theatre here in Brazil.