Ze Celso

Ze Celso and Teatro Oficina

I watch an early rehearsal for the new play Cacilda at Teatro Oficina.  I join the warm up.  The troupe of 20 odd actors are accompanied by musicians, drums, cello, guitar.  The warm up begins; actors stretching individually, transform into a group singing and moving as one.  All the actors are highly attuned to each other, the lead moves from one to the other.

The theatre space is a traverse, a passage beginning through massive steel doors, descending in steps, between the seating ranged on either side, gorge-like.  The group begins to read the text. Here, Ze Celso, the director of the company, orchestrates the proceedings.  The focus becomes rigorous.  He is a master.  In one moment he springs to the piano, at another he gives a beautiful and funny rendition of a song from the play. The group applauds. He has written this play, together with his colleague Marcello, as an hommage to the great Brazilian actress Calcilda Becker. This is the second part, the premiere of which will open in Rio, in September.  Earlier, over lunch, Ze had talked about how Cacilda had played Desdemona, the only white woman in an all black cast.  Ze had made a promise to write the first Cacilda play, if he recovered fully from a knee operation. There is a sense of the Gods in this theatre.  The play I watched, O Banquete,  conjures many of them. A fire is lit.  A tree grows out of the side of the building.  The dream is to build another theatre in the land adjoining, and that this theatre will become a passageway. A path through which the audience will pass and exit the other side.  Currently, like most theatres, the audience exit the same way they enter, like Orpheus visiting the underworld.  Here they will pass through, and out the other side; to travel through, to a new place.

Nos do Morro - a 'dialogical' methodology?

Nos do Morro is a theatre company which works in the favela community of Vidigal, overlooking Rio's Zona Sul. Marina Coutinho, who wrote a master's dissertation on the company, has noted how its origins have links with a Freirean 'dialogical' approach.

Many of the early plays, written by Paulo Correa e Castro, came out of a devising and improvising process with actors from the community. The art is produced through dialogue between artists and the Vidigal community. The main aim is artistic excellence. The measurements of social good can be made, but the company gives primacy to the Art of the Theatre. It was the distinctiveness of this approach, combined with the Freirean perspective, that drew me to work with the company.

The two previous projects, Hackney to the Favela 2005, and Knock against my Heart 2008, placed dialogue at the centre of the process.

http://www.knockagainstmyheart.blogspot.com

In 2009, my project still places dialogue at the heart and looks at the relationship between the company and Shakespeare (Nos do Morro performed at the RSC Complete Works Festival 2006); and the relationship between the company and new writing.

Romeo In the Favela

My first theatre encounter was with a version of Romeo and Juliet in Pavau, a favela on the hill behind Ipanema. It was an open rehearsal - typical of the producing company Nos do Morro - full of life, rhythm and energy.