[COMPLETED] Latin American dramaturgy comedy trilogy (August, 2022)

[eliaspintanel]

Hi, guys!

How are you? Following here my proposal for this month of August.

Proponent: Elias Pintanel

NEAR account for payment: eliaspintanel.near

Duration: 25 days

Requested Amount: 500 USD in NEAR

Project name: Latin American dramaturgy comedy trilogy

Objectives: Writing of three comic theatrical scenes in Portuguese that intend to bring together Latin American themes.

Description:
Writing of three theatrical scenes where each story takes place in a place in Latin America. In addition, the scene will take into account the type of comedy that the country where the scene takes place normally presents. So we will write a Mexican comedy that will take place in Acapulco, a Brazilian comedy in the city of Rio de Janeiro and an Argentine comedy in the city of Cordoba.

The project we think about here is to explore within the techniques of dramaturgical writing the aspect of comedy elements. Here we can see the consequences of our actions within the Writers-guild community and the Notívagos Burlescos theater group, which during the dramatic readings of the dramaturgy workshop and soirees that we have held in recent months, we realized that the audience present has a greater appreciation for the comic works . Not that this falls into questions of stereotypes or a form of expression without political or social weight, for example.

Our objective is to add to this exercise of comedy writing for theater, an approach of the public and readers to cultural elements of Brazil and Latin America (more specifically Mexico and Argentina). Culturally, the Brazilian public (where we live) consumes a lot of Mexican soap operas and series. To the point that expressions such as “how dramatic, it looks like a scene from a Mexican telenovela!” are common among us Brazilians. That’s why the choice of one of the scenes to take place in Mexico. The choice of another scene to take place in Argentina is due to our proximity to Argentine films and our geographical proximity to our country.

With this, the texts will be presented and have as points of cultural elements of the cultures such as: plot twists, the departure humor and “brega” text-types, exacerbated sexuality, original dubious character of the characters, surprising revelations of characters, usual unusual figures of everyday life, naivety, etc. Added to these elements are also popular references from each country and our continent. The texts will be written by @eliaspintanel and @johnfaus and, as a conclusion of the project, a dramatic reading of the texts will be carried out. The reading takes place in the “GARAGE - Cultural Space", Botucatu, SP, Brazil. There will also be an online display of the reading on the writers’ guild’s digital platforms and retransmitted on the channels of the company Notívagos Burlescos, with the aim of publicizing the guild and the NEAR ecosystem.

I want to emphasize that the project here is a consequence of the actions of Notívagos Burlescos, a theater group that has 20 years of history in the city of Botucatu, SP, Brazil. Our contribution to the project here is to give more direction to the production and dissemination of textual production for theater outside the large urban centers of Brazil.

Timeline
August, 6th at 20th — Finalization of three texts.
August, 21th at 26th — Dissemination and rehearsals of dramatic readings.
August, 27th — Face-to-face and live presentation of dramatic readings.
August, 29th — Final report post on forum.

Budget
160 USD in NEAR/DAI to 4 actors ($40 x 4 actors).
200 USD in NEAR/DAI to finalization 3 texts ($100 x 2 dramaturgist).
50 USD in NEAR/DAI to art design creation.
40 USD in NEAR/DAI to payment of the professional responsible for the online transmission.
50 USD in NEAR/DAI to rent of the space “GARAGE - Espaço de Cultura” for public reading.

Final Products

1. Write three dramatic texts;
2. Face-to-face presentation of texts in dramatic reading format, with virtual exhibition on Writer’s Guild channels and retransmission on Cia Notívagos Burlescos channels.

Additional benefits

• Stimulate the development of theatrical writing as a literary genre within the guild, publicizing the guild’s initiatives to other audiences.
• Fostering Latin American-themed dramaturgy, produced in state’s countryside of São Paulo, Brazil;
• Contribute to the strengthening and dissemination of the NEAR ecosystem and, mainly, the Writers’ Guild through online initiatives.

Thank you!

[palomak]

@eliaspintanel , nice proposal. I am curious to see the development of this work

[eliaspintanel]

[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!!

[eliaspintanel]

Here are some photos of the event where we read the dramatic texts.