Os Sertões: A luta 2 — do des-massacre ao reinício (2006)
From 2000 to 2007, Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona worked on the staging of Euclides da Cunha's epic book, Os Sertões, which describes the 19th Century War of Canudos in the Brazilian "sertão," lead by Antônio Conselheiro. The final result was a pentalogy, formed by the plays A Terra (2002), O Homem I (2003), O Homem II (2003), A Luta I (2005), and A Luta II (2006), totalizing 27 hours of theater. Os Sertões reads the episodes of the war in light of past and present Brazilian history, and in relation to the struggle of the group against media mogul Sílvio Santos, who wanted to tear down the historic theater to build a shopping mall.
Dedicated to "all the power of the Un-massacre of Art and to the effects of the Trans-Human power of the Crowd," the staging of the last part of the book deals with the fourth and last expedition by the Brazilian National Army to the Northeastern "sertão." 12 thousand soldiers, cannons, and modern weapons where deployed, together with modern strategists such as Marshal Bittencourt who, for the first time in the history of the Brazilian Army, established an operational base away from the front, from where he commanded the maneuvers that General Arthur Oscar and his deputy, the blood-thirsty General Barbosa, executed. The play shows the end of the War of Canudos, which resulted in the massacre of the sertanejos, the death of Antônio Conselheiro himself (who went to meet God), and the destruction of the citadel. In Teatro Oficina, the massacre is performed not as a mass for the repetition of the martyrdom, but from the perspective of an un-massacre. By exposing this closed abscess of Brazilian History in the Public Square of Theater, it wishes to lance it once and for all, to purge it from the everyday practice of Brazilian life. Canudos did not surrender, and Euclides da Cunha ends his book by reminding us that it is not one of defense, but of attack.
Additional Materials
Os Sertões: A Luta II, program with script (POR) (Os Sertões: A luta 1 (2005)
From 2000 to 2007, Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona worked on the staging of Euclides da Cunha's epic book, Os Sertões, which describes the 19th Century War of Canudos in the Brazilian "sertão," lead by Antônio Conselheiro. The final result was a pentalogy, formed by the plays A Terra (2002), O Homem I (2003), O Homem II (2003), A Luta I (2005), and A Luta II (2006), totalizing 27 hours of theater. Os Sertões reads the episodes of the war in light of past and present Brazilian history, and in relation to the struggle of the group against media mogul Sílvio Santos, who wanted to tear down the historic theater to build a shopping mall.
Dedicated to "the poet Oswald de Andrade and to the businessman, showman, and actor Sílvio Santos," the third part of the book tells the causing incident of the war, when a judge from Juazeiro stopped a shipment of wood that was paid for from being delivered for the construction of the New Church of Canudos. Three expeditions were sent by the National Army and defeated, the last one commanded by the famous Colonel Moreira César. The Army faced the humiliation of soldiers deserting and running away, and the impaling of Colonel Tamarindo. He ended up being the main character in a macabre installation on the road to Canudos, created by the Jagunços (thugs from the sertão) and the Mandrakes to intimidate new expeditions. The first movement of A Luta is written in cordel verse (popular string literature form). A Luta I also amplifies the performance space, with trench houses from the invincible Canudos that effectively form a spinal cord in the runway, and the aerial spaces of the mutãs, hideouts used by the Indians in the top branches of trees to hunt the jaguar, which the followers of Antônio Conselheiro reinvented. Lirinha, a musician from the Pernambuco band Cordel do Fogo Encantado, brought his passion for soundtracks, recording sounds from the theater itself, and transforming them into shots, artillery, creating with music the vanguard of the fight. The physical space of the performance is extended to the world, with recorded images, sampled, embroidered, in the streets that surround the theater, in the dressing rooms, in places hidden from the direct sight of the audience, making live cinema.
Additional Materials
Os Sertões: O homem 2 — da re-volta ao trans-homem (2003)
From 2000 to 2007, Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona worked on the staging of Euclides da Cunha's epic book, Os Sertões, which describes the 19th Century War of Canudos in the Brazilian "sertão," lead by Antônio Conselheiro. The final result was a pentalogy, formed by the plays A Terra (2002), O Homem I (2003), O Homem II (2003), A Luta I (2005), and A Luta II (2006), totalizing 27 hours of theater. Os Sertões reads the episodes of the war in light of past and present Brazilian history, and in relation to the struggle of the group against media mogul Sílvio Santos, who wanted to tear down the historic theater to build a shopping mall.
Dedicated to "the creation of an heroic and anti-heroic attitude of those that go to war and say: Farewell Man!," the theatrical version of the second movement of the second part of Os Sertões presents the passage from the re-volted man to the trans-man, creator of an alternate possibility for human adventure on Earth. From the story of Antônio Conselheiro, all theater relives its seminal death: a common man who, out of love, transmutes into an anti-messianic leader, gathering a legion of "sertanejos," roots of solidarity in the inlands of Bahia who, in a community effort, raise dams, churchs, and cemiteries. The community had at one point 25 thousand inhabitants, in its days the second largest city of Bahia. Capuchin Friars attempted to disperse the people of Canudos "diplomatically." Their denial to obey the official religious order led the Evangelist Friar to damn the followers of Antônio Conselheiro in the name of Jesus. The City prepares for war.
Additional Materials
Os Sertões: O homem 1 — do pré-homem à revolta (2003)
From 2000 to 2007, Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona worked on the staging of Euclides da Cunha's epic book, Os Sertões, which describes the 19th Century War of Canudos in the Brazilian "sertão," lead by Antônio Conselheiro. The final result was a pentalogy, formed by the plays A Terra (2002), O Homem I (2003), O Homem II (2003), A Luta I (2005), and A Luta II (2006), totalizing 27 hours of theater. Os Sertões reads the episodes of the war in light of past and present Brazilian history, and in relation to the struggle of the group against media mogul Sílvio Santos, who wanted to tear down the historic theater to build a shopping mall.
To understand the soul of the "sertanejo" (the inhabitant of the sertão)—what would lead the nature of this man to resist until the last day in Canudos—Euclides da Cunha recalls in his book the formation of Brazilian society, its telluric, animal, and tupi origin. The second part of the book (and the second play, O Homem I), is about the vigorous embrace of the winner, the Celtic European Colonizer, copulating with the defeated, with the slaves from the ships, forming the "Typeless-Brazilian" type. Mixtures of all kinds find their space in the stage in the surprising miscegenation already present in the cast and crew of Teatro Oficina itself. It is the story of the Brazilian Man, the Man of the Country abroad interbreeding with the Country inside, until the Revolt against the very idea—imposed and imported—of man, with the appearance of Zarathustra Antônio Conselheiro.
Additional Materials
Os Sertões: A Terra (2002)
From 2000 to 2007, Teat(r)o Oficina Uzyna Uzona worked on the staging of Euclides da Cunha's epic book, Os Sertões, which describes the 19th Century War of Canudos in the Brazilian "sertão," lead by Antônio Conselheiro. The final result was a pentalogy, formed by the plays A Terra (2002), O Homem I (2003), O Homem II (2003), A Luta I (2005), and A Luta II (2006), totalizing 27 hours of theater. Os Sertões reads the episodes of the war in light of past and present Brazilian history, and in relation to the struggle of the group against media mogul Sílvio Santos, who wanted to tear down the historic theater to build a shopping mall.
In A Terra, the first impact is the geography of the sertão. Euclides da Cunha describes each part of the sertão in the first part of his book, revealing to the reader an x-ray of the region. In the play, a carnival opera, an epic Brazilian musical, the actors are the earth, the vegetation, the wind, the animals, the rivers, the drought. It reveals the most intimate secrets of nature, that also vibrate in the human and trans-human arteries. When this work returned as a musical overture to the whole pentalogy, enriched by the experience that the subsequent works brought to the creators and to the audience, it gained an updated insight into the human interference in the environment. Destructive power is proportional to financial power, and the discussion about the way space gets occupied was brought to the forefront, including the real-estate boom that surrounds today not only Teatro Oficina, but the whole world, now hotter and more arid.