Era uma vez um grêmio: o teatro musical de Carlos Câmara e a construção do teatro cearense

Abstract

In the 1920s and 1930s, a theater group named Grêmio Dramático Familiar (Dramatic Familiar Guild) was started in Fortaleza, Ceará, which revolutionized the theater movement, arousing the true theater from Ceará. Before that, one used to think the lack of theatrical activity and audience attendance was due to the lack of a well structured playhouse, but in practice, that proved not to be true. It was with Car-los Câmara Theater, staging his texts A Bailarina, O Casamento da Peraldiana, Zé Fidelis, O Calú, Alvorada, Os Piratas, Pecados da Mocidade, O Paraíso, Os Coris-cos that the city consecrated its presence and applause. They were musicals, of the burleta kind, quick comic skits presented in an improvised little theater away from downtown, but which magnetized their contemporaries, who saw themselves portrayed on stage through a typically picturesque language from Ceará. Devoid of artistic ambitions, Carlos Câmara kept following the footsteps of his master Arthur Azevedo, and writing for a certain cast, the talented components of the Grêmio Dramático Familiar.