This theatre lover is always interested in what is playing at Rio`s Teatro Poeira because two distinguished actresses of Brazil`s theatrical world, Marieta Severo and Andrea Beltrao, own and run this non-commercial but high-quality artistic venture in a city overrun with pharmacies rather than bookshops and art movie houses.
Currently on display at Poeira`s annex, Teatro Poeirinha after successful runs in the theatrical capital of Brazil, Sao Paulo, in a Tuesday to Sunday residency since 6 November is “ANONYMOUS SHOWCASE – three solo pieces by female authors”
The project sheds light on the historical silencing of women artists, and is composed of the solo pieces:
“CREATURE, AN AUTOPSY” by Bruna Longo, “INVENTORY” by Erica Montanheiro and “THAT TRAIN” by Denise Dietrich,
Invited to view Dietrich`s psycholically-moving personal story of being the great-niece of super German-American movie star Marlene Dietrich (1901, Berlin-1992, Paris), I came away from the feeling as if I had viewed an insightful experience shedding light not only on the actresses -playwright`s life but on all of our existences.
Ms. Dietrich,45, originally from Resplendor (17,629 inhabitants), Minas Gerais, displays alone onstage via jumping rope, riding a bicycle, playing childhood games, musing about her childhood traumas (`an uncle kissed me in my mouth when I was six years old,` etc) that we are the consequences of many occurrences most of us have forgotten or would rather forget.
And like numerous psychoanalysis sessions (in Ms Dietrich`s case Lacanian) these good and bad memories from Denises childhood and upbringing, her childhood games, dreams and nightmares and how she was (mis-)treated by her elders emerge in this insightful 80-minute monologue which seems to have more than one actor onstage.
In Denises case, she faced a super-macho father agricultural owner who in the `cu do mundo` (boondocks, to translate it mildly) –as she describes it on her blackboard—labelled her ambitions to follow in internationally famous Aunt Marlene`s theatrical footsteps as `prostitution, ‘despite her father being extremely proud of Aunt Marlene.
Denises frustrations and suffering in her childhood in a macho-society which Brazil was then (and continues to be?) was not only a unique case but part of the landscape in the bad old days when women going out alone to restaurants, driving, or even travelling alone was all met negatively.
Her escape from the emotionally stifling provincial life was to take –as her mother did when Denise was six years old–`That Train,` (to Sao Paulo)the title of her book of memories which resulted in the monologue.
In an 2022 interview Denise correctly says `My director( Erica Montanheiro) says when more intimate and personal is your story the more universal in becomes.`
Right on!
Monologues can get tiresome but not this one which is embellished by a pre-recorded film sequence featuring `Aunt` Marlene.
Other solo pieces travel through three centuries, traversing the universes of literature, through the writer Mary Shelley (1797-1851) and her Frankenstein, in the 19th century; the visual arts, through the sculptor Camille Claudel (1864-1943), who lived in the shadow of her lover and sculptor Auguste Rodin, in the 20th century
SHOWTIMES:
“THAT TRAIN” – Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8 PM
“CREATURE, AN AUTOPSY” – Thursdays and Fridays at 8 PM
“INVENTORY” – Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 7 PM
TICKETS: R$80.00 and R$40.00 (half-price) at www.sympla.com.br or at the box office from Tuesday to Saturday from 3 PM to 8 PM and Sundays from 3 PM to 7 PM / CAPACITY: 50 seats / DURATION: “That Train” (80 min) / “Creature, An Autopsy” (70 min) / “Inventory” (60 min) / GENRE: drama / RATING: 12 years / ACCESSIBILITY: yes / SEASON: until December 21st