Crítica doutrinária: teatro e política nas crônicas de Décio de Almeida Prado

Abstract

This thesis analyses Decio de Almeida Prado’s theatrical reviews, published on Clima magazine (1941-1944) and three books: Apresentação do teatro brasileiro moderno (1956), Teatro em progresso (1964) and Exercício findo (1987). These books consist of reviews written for O Estado de São Paulo newspaper and later selected for publishing by Decio himself. The present work makes efforts towards producing a metacriticism, aimed at the comprehension of Decio de Almeida Prado’s theoretical and aesthetical guidelines. The critic shows a specific concept of theatrical modernization, based at first on rejecting Brazilian theatrical past and adopting the French modern aesthetical tendencies whose main references are Jacques Copeau and Louis Jouvet. One shows the gap between the modernization model advocated by Decio de Almeida Prado and its effective implementation on the Brazilian cultural environment. This gap is explained in the critic’s writings through several factors: the fragile state of Brazilian playwriting, the existence of other tendencies competing with Frech “literary theatre” – such as expressionism and, later, epic theatre –, and the survival of the so-called “old theatre”. Later on, however, one perceives an interpretation on Decio’s writings that softens the opposition between Brazil’s “old” and modern theatre. This perspective sheds light on the elements leading Decio de Almeida Prado to assume a new position in regards to Brazilian “old theatre” from the 1960s on, an effort of recovering these theatrical practices and understanding its inner assumptions. This new position, of which the first signs appear during the last years of Decio’s activity as a reviewer, will become the main characteristic of his historical-academic phase to follow.