The portrait of an artist as a young man has been the subject of numerous memoirs,novels,films and plays by not only international authors from Ireland´s James Joyce to American playwright Eugene O´Neill but various Brazilian authors, including the late playwright Mauro Rasi (Bauru, Sao Paulo,1949-Leblon, RJ).
Coincidentally one day before Brazil´s former President and vehemently anti-intellectual Jair Messias Bolsonaro had his political rights suspended for eight years, or 29 June 2023, Rasi´s classic “The Farewell Ceremony (“A Ceremonia do Adeus”) opened this week at Rio´s historically prestigious Copacabana Palace Hotel theatre.
Although “Adeus” is listed as a “comedy,” this theatergoer would rather classify the three-act play as a tragedy, detailing the difficulties of a young Brazilian intellectual to break out of his bourgeoise existence in a provincial city or Bauru, Sao Paulo state.
Book burning ,the instigation by family members that the intellectual ,creative life is that of a wastrel ring throughout the play echoing real-life dramas of creative artists to survive emotionally and financially not only in Brazil but in most parts of the world.
The parallels to Oneill´s family-obsessed psycho-drama “Long Day´s Journey into the Night” (1956) and the comedy-tragedy film by Woody Allen´s conflict between fiction and reality in “The Purple Rose of Cairo” kept on plaguing this theatregoer from his fourth-row seat on the aisle.
But instead of Cecilia, a New Jersey waitress confusing her drab life with a film which so obsesses her that characters walk off the movie screen, we have in “Ceremony, “a young playwright and budding intellectual speaking with and observing “visitors” Simone Beauvoir and Jean- Paul Sartre.
In real life the couple as vanguards of the French left-wing intellectual movement did visit Brazil in 1960 at the invitation of Jorge (“Gabriela”) Amado, staying two months and influencing a generation of Brazilians with Satre´s “Existentialism” and Beauvoir´s “Second Sex.”
And in Rasi´s autobiographical tragic-comedy the main character Juliano (Lucas Lentini) confesses that “I would have committed suicide if it weren´t for Sartre and Beauvoir.”
A pianist-would -be playwright (like Rasi was once himself) Juliano retreats most of his time to his room into the world of books in contrast a love-hate relationship with his mother (Malu Galli) and conflicts with his cousins and Aunt.
Like a classical musical work with a new interpreter and “up-to -date” interpretation, the current production which officially runs until 23 July, has an updated soundtrack substituting rap for Joan Baez and music of her epoch by Andre Abujamra.58, the son of the Sao Paulo director Antonio Abujamra, who portrayed Sartre in the 1989 Sao Paulo production which won Brazil´s top theatrical prizes.
The current production directed by award-winning director and theatrical innovator Ulysses Cruz,70, features Beth Goulart as Simone Beauvoir, Eucir de Souza as Sartre and Fernanda Viacava, Rafael Bona and Fernando Moscardi.
Ann all-star cast!
It is not an easy play to digest but like a good meal leaves an unforgettable impression afterwards about the possibilities of the Brazilian theater as an international art form which should be better recognized and appreciated.