[FINAL REPORT]
Project name: Latin American dramaturgy comedy trilogy
Project Status: Concluded
Project Accounting: The objective of the project was successfully accomplished, with the writing of the three comic theatrical texts and the dramatic reading of them. The texts were read in the “Garage - Cultural Space” with the presence of the public from the city of Botucatu, SP, Brazil, and with the online transmission on youtube.
Self-assessment
I am very happy with the completion of this project and to know where we have come with this work. I want to thank the Writer’s Guild immensely for this possibility and thank my partner @johnfaus, for writing the texts with me and helping me in the work.
The writing of our texts took place as follows: I created three dramatic situations from some artistic references that I had from each of the three countries. The Mexican scene ended up having a reference to the theater of panic (Arrabal and Jodorowski) and images of the painter Frida Khalo. “Tequila popsicle” tells the story of a man, Miguel, who is afraid to enter the water and ends up meeting his psychologist and his girlfriend disguised as his mother on the beach. This scene was worked with surreal elements such as landscapes and evocative images by the dialogues and comic by the propositions of actions to the actors and other scene indications such as props and costumes (inspired by works by Frida Khalo and Aztec culture).
The text that takes place in Brazil is called “The passport” and tells the story of a boy, Ulisses, who sells his organs to get money to live in Zurich. The text addresses some Brazilian cultural elements that have a traditional and conservative imaginary (this in direct criticism of some political issues of the current Brazilian moment). A middle-class family, a father who only watches television and football, a domineering mother, a son who is born into a financial and social situation that he doesn’t like. Based on evocative images of our daily lives, the text, which at first can be seen as a realistic comedy, becomes absurd when the mother opens the shirt of her son who was passed out on the scene, and realizes that his chest is actually a control panel. . Only his head was left in the entire process of selling his body.
In “The Afonsina funeral’s”, a text that takes place in Argentina, we write inspired by a classic of Argentine comic cinema: “Esperando la carroza” by Alejando Doria. The film is inspired by a 1960s Uruguayan play by Jacobo Lagsner. In our scene the story is completely different. But that uses aspects of Argentine culture and narrative model. “The Afonsina funeral’s” tells of a wake in which two brothers and a sister discuss how their dead mother’s inheritance will be divided. Putting sentimental aspects, bringing the characters together, almost making them character-types, the comic comes from the characters’ messed up actions that, in sum, end up leading to an absurd situation, but which nevertheless tends to convey the feeling of “that this is possible to happen”.
We had a problem when streaming the event online. The technical problem ended up causing us to broadcast through the “GARAGE - Cultural Space” channel. I apologize for this error that happened due to a communication error between the team and the technician of the online transmission. Here’s the link to the broadcast saved on youtube: Leitura Dramática Trilogia Comica - Latino Americana - YouTube.
In person, we had a full house again, people who are assiduously attending our actions and others who are coming to hear about our actions and the quality of our productions. We had a post-reading chat where the conversation was precisely about the need to take the texts to the stage and the creation procedures. So, @johnfaus and I were very happy to see that we are achieving our goal of writing, reading and talking to people about the dramatic literature writing process.
Thanks again to NEAR ecosystem and the Writer’s Guild for this opportunity to reach out to people and talk to them about literary creation made for theater and itself NEAR. I also thank the space “GARAGE- Cultural Space” where we carried out the reading. And I hope we can continue to produce literature and contribute to the spread and growth of the NEAR ecosystem and the Writer’s Guild.
A huge thank you!!