The stage and the road: the place of performance in "Romance de Dom Pantero no Palco dos Pecadores" by Ariano Suassuna

Abstract

Ariano Suassuna (1927-2014) spent the last 30 years of his life working on the book he referred to as all of his work’s “synthesis”. Romance de Dom Pantero no Palco dos Pecadores (The novel of Dom Pantero at the sinners’ stage) was published on December 2017, after the author’s death. One of the factors that may have helped to delay the process of writing it was the search for the right format that allowed the achievement of the wanted synthesis. This paper aims to investigate the importance of performance as the solution for Suassuna’s synthesis project using as sources the works of authors such as Azevedo (2007), Klinger (2008), Newton Junior (2017), Ravetti (2002), and Zumthor (2014). We begin by unveiling the mask of Dom Pantero, the heteronyms present on the book and Suassuna’s ‘ilumiara’. Then we contextualize the development of his aulas-espetáculo (show classes) which were performances in which he used to merge two performatic figures: the clown and the teacher. The importance of story-telling in Suassuna’s region and also the presence of performance at the printed book of Romance de Dom Pantero will then be approached.