Nelson Rodrigues and the drama as spirit of repetition of capitalism in Brazil

Abstract

This article deals with the particular process of Brazilian theater’s formation through two stagings of the play Family album by Nelson Rodrigues: we start from the naturalistic staging of the play’s premiere, in 1967, and proceed to the conception of the eternal return in Antunes Filho’s staging, Nelson Rodrigues The eternal return, of 1981. Antunes’ staging would have congured, through allegorical procedures, an aspect already present in formal issues of Nelson Rodrigues’ dramaturgy the – eternal return – but still obscured by the tradition of national comedy of customs, which only emerged from the Brazilian historical reality at the end of the 1970’s. This reality is characterized, in its turn, by the end of the economic miracle and by dismantling the idea of the country’s appointment with progress. Without an encounter with progress, only the eternal repetition would be left to us.