Oswald de Andrade, a pyromaniac dramatist

Abstract

This paper aims to examine Oswald de Andrade’s role as a playwright, with emphasis on A morta – ato lírico em três quadros (1937). The play ends with a fire, caused by the character of the Poet and whose flames spread throughout the theater. On one hand, it is possible to see in this outcome the explanation of the furtive revolutionary impetus of the work, in which the clash between the working class inspired by Marxist ideas and the employer elite adept of fascist integralism is staged. On the other hand, it is also possible to see in it the allegorical counterpart of the annihilation of the dramatic form manifested in this drama. The analysis undertaken here seeks to equate both perspectives of approach, by evoking the socio-political context underlying the composition of the text and by highlighting aspects of the play such as the separation between body and voice or the emptying of dramatic action. Finally, it is intended to point out that the aesthetic attributes of the play, responsible for distancing it from theatrical conventions in force at the time of its writing, contribute, nowadays, to its very stimulating reading at the beginning of the 21st century.