Odd couple – The play and Theater in Brazil

Today, 08/26/2010, the drama class had the last presentation of the play “Odd Couple” and I'm here to say that everything was perfect. All actors were amazing and I'm really glad to be part of this group and I would like to say thank you so much for everyone.

Act is not an easy thing to do, we need dedication, we need patience, love and work hard, during the rehearsal and after that. That's my profession and here I would like to talk a little bit about the theater in Brazil.

People say that culture may be in crisis, but theater is very much alive in Brazil these days. In São Paulo, more than 150 plays will be presented at the beginning of September, including some for children.

We have many festivals in my country and the most famous is the Festival de Teatro de Curitiba (Curitiba's Theater Festival) that happens in the capital of Paraná state. The event, is divided into four categories: contemporary theater, children's theater and special events. That's a government festival and any professional company can participate. If you win this festival, beyond have prestige, the group get money to keep working and usually is invited to show they play in other countries.

History

Brazil is a new country, I mean, as we know like now and the the experience in this country is new too. Therefore I will explain briefly about our history.

Theater literally arrived in Brazil with the first ships bringing colonists, and with the new arrivals came those attributes, which depicted the baroque spirit as well as the religious conflicts of the period. Little importance was given to the literary script. The audience was partial to the staging, theatrics, special stage effects and the Faustian overtones.

Allied with the festive rituals and dances of the indigenous population, the first form of theater known by the Brazilians, was that of the Portuguese, which had a pedagogic character based on the Bible. In that era, the person primarily responsible for teaching about theater, as well as the authorship of plays, was Father Anchieta.

The truly national theater only came to establish itself halfway through the XIX century, when the romanticism had its start. Martins Pena was one of those responsible for that, through his costume comedies. Other highlighted names from that time were, the dramatist Artur Azevedo, the actor and theatrical impresario, João Caetano and, in literature, the writer Machado de Assis.

I really love my profession and I'm sure that in your countries you have amazing plays and theater groups. I would love to know about theater in my classmates countries.

My theater company has a blog, if you are interested to visit, please, do it:

http://ciateatrodefebre.blogspot.com/

Roberta.