Lusophone BLOG TAKEOVER #2

What will become of classical theatre post-COVID-19?

Theatre — and to say ‘theatre’ means for us ‘Attic theatre’, ‘classical theatre’, ‘organic theatre with an Aristotelian base’, as well as its contemporary adaptations — was an integral part of life in Athens of the 5th century BC. And today it is indispensable for any democratic culture. It is an art that was developed to be performed live and for large audiences.

Every theatre artist knows that filmed theatre is not theatre and any stage artist knows that theatrical art can not be captured on camera.

Times change, habits change and cameras and software change! But the theatre has survived 25 centuries. It has outlived wars, repressions, dictatorships… Give us an audience and we will make a show!

Let us create a network of awareness and support, dissemination, and resistance. Researchers, actors, directors, and artists must together resist and keep the theatrical body alive. Let’s say it out loud, in a ‘resounding cry’: the theatre ‘threatens’ to stay alive… Evohe, Bacchus!

Faced with this scenario – that of a pandemic contingency in which we had to ‘change the role in the representation of our lives’ and that demands isolation and antidemocratic distance, what can be expected from the theatrical art that has always been done in full theatres, without social distance, foreseeing enthusiastic agglomerations and debate with an exchange of looks and words? It is necessary to join forces and reinvent paths.

Concerned with the future of this art, Fátima, Susana and Tereza interviewed actors and directors to debate the theme.

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From Brazil, first we heard from Anita Mosca

Anita Mosca is an Italian theatre actress, playwright, and theatre director. Her education began in Italy at Filo di Arianna school sponsored by E.T.I. (Ente Teatrale Italiano, Roma). She had classes with Enzo Moscato, Michele Monetta, Marcello Bartoli, Eugenio Barba among others. Now, she is the director of the Truπersa – Ancient Theatre Translation and Staging Group – in Belo Horizonte (Brazil).

She became a doctoral student in Modern and Contemporary Literatures in the Postgraduate Program in Letters – Literary Studies at the Faculty of Letters of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Post-lit-FALE-UFMG), in co-supervision with Università L’Orientale di Napoli, within a Theatre Translation Theory project.

Anita Mosca graduated with a Bachelors and Masters degree from FALE-UFMG. Since 2015, she has been collaborating as actress, director and translator with Truπersa, which focuses its research on decolonisation in the translation of Attic tragedy.

Among Truπersa’s professional works, the following stand out: “Tragedy in Drops” (Juiz de Fora, 2019); “Maternities – Dangerous Relations”, (SBPC/UFMG National Science Day, Belo Horizonte, 2019); “Orestes, my favourite evildoer” (Sala Paula Lima, Belo Horizonte, 2018); “Family relationships” (Minimal Theatre Festival, Belo Horizonte, 2018).

Mosca has participated in several translations and publications by Truπersa and, in particular, in the translation of Electra and Orestes by Euripides, under the direction by Tereza Virgínia Ribeiro Barbosa, published by Ateliê, in 2015 and 2017 respectively. She also contributed to the translation of Euripides’ Hecuba, which is awaiting publication.

We wanted to hear her opinion in the face of the crisis we’ve been through.

For you, Anita, what will become of the theatre after the coronavirus pandemic?

The pandemic forced us to reflect on possible new ways of exercising our profession, the Theatre. We realised, with perplexity, the impossibility of continuing our canonical theatrical practice, one that was performed live and with great agglomeration. The old theatre, for us, is synonymous with a wide audience in conventional places – be it closed or open – in a ritual and festive fashion.

The essence of theatre is, in our view, an encounter, in presence, conceived of flesh, breath, blood, words and sweat. A ritual, during which artists and spectators breathe together. And it is precisely this type of meeting which, in the new pandemic situation, has become prohibited. What to do? How do we overcome the disorientation of the moment and find a possible way to continue our vocation?

To continue our work, we concentrated our efforts on the voice. When everything is missing for an actor (costumes, scenographic elements, lights, space), the voice, ultimately, remains as a free and independent element, with which the actor can continue his craft, even in the virtual ether. Ahead of the hypothesis of a theatre in videos, in streaming, we prefer, as a kind of protest, to focus on the voice, one of the primordial resources of the ancient actor. This being the case, we are working to carry out the audio drama of Euripides’ tragedy, Hecuba.

How to continue working in these difficult times?

Truπersa met virtually during the pandemic to select from among its various translations of tragedies, seeking which one would be the most appropriate to dialogue with the Brazilian population about the terrible event experienced by all. It was from this consideration that the troupe placed itself in the endeavour to study, rehearse and interpret vocally Euripides’ Hecuba.

Still, under quarantine, work began on table reading, hermeneutics, memorisation, study and improvement of the voice, selection and composition of soundtracks, etc. The speeches were recorded, discussed, replaced. Numerous associations were made between this sanitary state of exclusion, demanded by the New Coronavirus, and the psychic drama of war, in order to re-analyse our values and conduct of life. We are facing the period of Covid19 in cathartic therapy with the text of Hecuba, by Euripides, which is being used as a therapeutic and curative product.

It’s hard to think about Hecuba right now.  You have chosen a tragedy known as a play of vengeance, hatred and betrayal; have these themes – always current especially in the globalized world, full of tensions – been disregarded? Why Hecuba?

Anita. No, not at all. It was precisely these themes, vengeance, hatred, betrayals faced in Euripides’ Hecuba, that determined the choice of this tragedy at this specific moment, besides, of course, the central and greatest theme, pain and loss. We are experiencing a moment of strong tension in Brazil. In addition to going through a pandemic, the country is being traversed by strong political and social concerns. Often there are manifestations of hatred and desire for revenge, in face-to-face and virtual demonstrations.  Hate speech is permeating society. We believe that a retreat is required.  Working on these aspects could provide a therapy to the listening public, remembering that we want to make an audio drama, the possibility of purging violent and toxic passions.  After all, Euripides clearly shows to us the fate of those who allow themselves to be taken by the thirst for vengeance. Hecuba feels it and loses. In this regard, Tereza, as a Brazilian, will be able to give a better answer, considering the reason for revenge…

Tereza. Right. Hecuba is a tragedy of vengeance. But there are several types of vengeance. Art helps us to understand them. I’m not sure they’re legitimate. The fact is they exist, at least, in the form of desire. Tragedy always raises ethical issues to be reflected upon. The revenge of Polydorus – killed by his host and thrown into the sea – is to obtain a dignified burial. This is the longing of all those who left life because of Covid19 in Brazil. But, with the crisis, the wakes are forbidden, the burials are collective… From Hecuba’s perspective – she had one daughter elected to be sacrificed, another was requisitioned as a war trophy and her son Polydorus infamously murdered… All this, in Brazil, is not uncommon – in Brazil there are thousands of women who lose their children, fathers and husbands to the war of trafficking and all the crimes that result from it, and the thing has intensified with Covid19. Then I ask: wouldn’t it be a fair reason to stage Hecuba to give vent to the desire for revenge of all of them?  Wouldn’t this opportunity be an unparalleled way to give them a cathartic moment?

Besides all that, when the rulers don’t care about their dead, wouldn’t it be time to shout out “black, white, yellow, brown lives matter!”? And: would it not be the moment to say with Euripides that in war, in vengeance, there are no winners or losers, no aggravated or disenfranchised? Wouldn’t it be, perhaps, the cause of so many new stagings of Hecuba (which can be checked at http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/)?

Anita. In addition to giving voice to the desire for revenge that exists in the socially excluded, we focus on Hecuba because, in addition to being a classic, it is a universal and necessary work in any culture. Beyond focusing on a text of unparalleled beauty and configuring a production at a level of excellence and high competence, it is an unprecedented work, born from an unprecedented translation – and sui generis for being produced specifically for audio drama and for Brazilians. Hecuba’s staging proposal meets an immediate need of the Brazilian population, namely, we are living through the trauma of a sanitary war. An unfair war that makes us face a strange, unknown, incongruous and absurd enemy, a banal enemy capable of being killed with soap and water, but invisible, shady, silent, opportunistic and, therefore, terrible, capable of invading the most protected recesses of our homes. There have been thousands of deaths already in Brazil. Many, not even named, just statistical numbers. Men and women buried in a mass grave, without farewell, without tears or candles. This requires repair. We try to respond as artists, actors, and actresses of our time, to the special moment that the world is going through by offering our Hecuba.

We thank you, Anita, for your report. It is important for us as scholars and lovers of classical theatre, we need to think about how to preserve such precious art.

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From Brazil (also) we heard from Antonio Edson

Antonio Edson graduated in 1980 at the extension project of Theatre of UFMG (University Theatre – TU). He is one of the founding members of the theatre company Grupo Galpão, considered as one of the most important companies in Brazil, located in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, where it has been developing a constant work since 1982, alternating between productions for conventional spaces and street theatre, always seeking for a permanent dialogue between classic and modern theatre, always linked to the popular roots of theatre.

He says: “Personally my interest in the project Truπersa goes back to my educational background as an actor on TU where I was able to know a little of Greek theatre. The opportunity of working under the orientation of the prestigious specialist professor Tereza Virginia and under the direction of the Italian actress and director Anita Mosca has opened a window to broaden my knowledge on the subject”.

We wanted to hear his opinion in the face of the crisis we’ve been through
For you, Toninho, what will become of the theatre after the coronavirus pandemic?

I see the current situation with a lot of anxiety and also a lot of angst. Unfortunately, we have no reason to be optimistic. The saying “a crisis is an opportunity…” sounds like perverse rhetoric and nothing else.

However, there’s still hope. The theatre has existed for more than two thousand years as the agora where the stage and the audience, the artist and the public meet. The theatre has survived the countless crisis, it’s a stubborn resurrected and that happens mostly due to its own strength, its capacity – seemly endless – of always reaching new meanings.

When we were forced to interrupt our activities in the rehearsal room, we were about 15 days to premiere our newest work. Suddenly, meetings online, virtual platforms and so on started to become a part of our work routine. We started to produce a variety of small virtual actions so that we could remain active and to strengthen the relationship with our followers, our public.

Among these actions, one detached: an audio-visual production that would turn into a documentary of the company during the pandemics. The project titled “Éramos em Bando” (We were as a flock), was backed by the Municipal Foundation of Culture of Belo Horizonte and premiered 4^th of June, after 15 meetings between actors and directors on the platform Zoom. They were registered and edited under the direction of Marcelo Castro, Vinícius Souza and Pablo Lobato. It was aired from the 4^th to the 14^th of June on the Youtube channel of the Foundation.

Asides from my work with Galpão, I also take part in a project of the Group Trupersa with the stage production of Hecuba by Euripides. Before it turns into a stage performance it will become an audio drama under the orientation of Tereza Virgínia and direction of Anita Mosca.

Why continue with the theatre?

Along almost 40 years on the road we have been applauded by many important people, people whose notorious knowledge with their analyses and reviews helped us to find solutions to our artistic anxieties and renew our disposition to face the road. Benefited from the opportunity that the street theatre has given us we were able to be acknowledged by the cultured and studied scholar as well as receive the care and the gratitude of the working class, the John Does in the streets worldwide.

Our work has taken us to presentations in Globe Theatre in London as well as to a small community of sugar cane cutters on the Brazilian countryside and that has taught us a lot about the social role of the actor. The moment is, more than never, of resistance, of resisting and re-existing.