As Velhas, de Lourdes Ramalho: dramaturgia e encenação

Abstract

It refers to the doctoral thesis entitled "The Old Women, by Lourdes Ramalho: dramaturgy, playwright and canon". Our look involves the analysis of the The Velhas theatrical text, as well as its connections with the regional peculiarities of the Northeast, a context that incorporates past and present, tradition and deconstruction, tragic and comic, social and gender relations, social and human criticism. We tried, however, to discuss the influence of the Romance of 30 in the dramatic literature of the Northeast, highlighting the different social, political and cultural conditions of this region. We also dealt with the historical and sociological aspects of Northeastern theater in the 1950s and 1970s, its links with the Brazilian theatrical scene of these decades and the place of As Velhas in these contexts. The playwright Lourdes Ramalho reminds us of the suffering and heroism of two mothers: Mariana and Ludovina, the protagonists who live with plagues, vows and misfortunes, sometimes provided by social conditions, sometimes by situations attributed to their own destiny. The characters of As Velhas, who are victims of the political system that governs the country, are men and women condemned to face the survival and the most diverse difficulties, but surely they are surrounded by beliefs and inherent customs, long ago, to the Their own culture. In As Velhas, the author shows us that old people are also the conditions of life of the Northeastern people, especially that of the backlands, impoverished by the difficult conditions of the region, humble and massacred; There are also the promises of politicians; Old things are the problems that cross the lives of men and women; Old things are sentences of death, ambushes, the struggle for social justice. In this sense, if the structures that sustain poverty and poverty are old, there is a need for the emergence of artists capable of, in a dramatic way, condensing meanings and, through their work, acting in transformation and change. Finally, we report on a theatrical production of this text by the Contratempo Theater Group, its creative process and its debut in the year 2000, with presentations until 2006. The realization of this work will certainly collaborate with the dissemination of the work of Lourdes Ramalho, Looking for subsidies capable of diffusing her dramaturgy through paths not yet traveled nationally, because, even in the face of his creative potential, recognized in the Northeast region, his dramaturgical work composed of one hundred and six texts, is outside the canon of authors of Brazilian dramaturgy.