In Praise of Treason.

[formercia]

In Praise of Treason: Three Contemporary Versions of Calabar
Severino João Albuquerque


University of Wisconsin-Madison


For much of the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, the nation's playwrights were presented with and forced to respond to a series of repressive acts and conditions, ranging from censorship to persecution, arrests and torture, and from denial of subsidies to closing down of theaters, and even arson. Indeed, of all the art forms, the theater was the most frequently and seriously harassed by the military government. Playwrights, directors, actors, and those associated with the theater in general were major targets of the Federal Police, who interpreted any expression of dissension as an act of treason and a threat to national security. Careers were often ruined or seriously damaged due to problems with the censorship division of the Ministry of Justice, whose officials were particularly wary of the theater because of the ever present possibility of improvisation, with the actors departing from the pre-approved script, in a live performance. Moreover, especially in the late sixties and early seventies, the military regime identified as one of its strongest opponents the alliance between college students, labor unions, and theater groups. Those were the days when the infamous Comando de Caça aos Comunistas had tacit government approval for actions such as the violent interruption in 1968 of a Grupo Oficina performance of Chico Buarque's Roda viva, followed by the virtual destruction of the theater where the play was being staged. Two years later, Julian Beck, Judith Malina and their Living Theater group, then on an extended visit to Brazil, were arrested, tortured, and expelled from the country.

Especially with the severe curtailment of the freedom of the press, the theater had a unique contribution to make, and not only because many of its own people were at the forefront of the resistance. In spite of arrests and torture experienced by Augusto Boal and others, the nation's dramatists seized the political moment and countered the victimization with an art form that was often as urgent as the confrontations on the streets. During the military dictatorship, and especially after the coup-within-the-coup of 1968, the historical approach became a particularly useful tool for committed dramatists. Because of the ruthless censorship then in effect, it became necessary for these playwrights to resort to metaphor in order to comment on the repressive regime. The colonial past, moreover, lent itself well to a metaphorical treatment of the contemporary situation because of the parallels in issues such as freedom of speech, human rights, torture, and the overall relation of power and oppression.

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