“IN THE HIDE-OUT OF A FOREIGN WORLD” - THE CREATION AND TRAJECTORY OF THE EXPERIMENTAL THEATER OF THE BLACK

Abstract

Until the nineteen forties decade, the Negroes in the Brazilian drama were
represented, even when taking up major parts, throughout some stereotyped characters and
caricatures inherited from the slavery period. Between the end of the nineteenth century and the
beginning of the twentieth, the feminine negro character so many times appears in dramatic parts
like the “mulata” beautiful and sexy (with good dancing skills and body performance), the “babá”
(wet-nurses regularly black, thick lips and fat, confidant, tearful and helpful), the “bahiana macumbeira” (normally in voodoo style, seller of grocer's shops, dressing wide skirts, sewed smock,
turban, necklaces and local baubles), the “black old lady” (old African having knowledge of ancient
secrets), and the masculine characters like the “smart young black” (a lodger of the Brazilian ‘greathouse’),
the “fool” (lacking intelligence, lout, ignorant and idiot), the “father John” (mostly old
black, docile submissive and conformist). Around nineteen forty-four, there is within Rio de
Janeiro the foundation of a new drama group, created by black actors intended to revise the stage
tradition for representation of race, bringing to stage different works related to African-Brazilian
culture subjects, to the racism conflicts and the Negroes stigma. It was the Negroes Workshop
Theater (“Teatro Experimental do Negro”, TEN). The present article intends at to describe the
creation process and a summary of the trajectory of the group.