Brief Critical Survey of the Crisis of Brazilian Postdictatorial Dramaturgy

Abstract

This paper discusses the situation of Brazilian playwriting after the end of the military dictatorship in this country. It presents signs that artists and critics were clearly conscious of the fact that, in the light of the political, socioeconomic and cultural developments of the 1980s, the structure of modern drama was no longer pertinent to talk about the dilemmas of living in Brazil and to capture the forces that impact on this life. It discusses the reasons why there was no broader discussion on the crisis of the dramatic form between Brazilian playwrights. In doing so, the paper presents a pre-history of the crisis of representational, realist mimesis in contemporary Brazilian playwriting and puts in historical perspective its difficulties of accepting creatively this crisis of realist dramatic representation