arrancar alegria ao futuro

 

 

"Ter medo do futuro se transformou em algo comum e a necessidade de reverter o cancelamento do futuro se transformou em tarefa de parte significativa da sociedade" (Estudo de Cena).

"O medo do futuro se alastra, a necessidade de arrancar alegria ao futuro nos atravessa" (Notas para a vida no LIMIAR).

In the "Prólogo Documental" of Notas para a vida no LIMIAR (2022), the actors make a series of statements about our current situation:

"Diante dos nossos olhos se aprofundam crises financeiras, ecológicas, viróticas, socias. Paira no presente uma sensação, difusa, de uma crise profunda e ampla."

"Vivemos dentro de um cadáver chamado Capitalismo, que se move sugando nossas vidas, nosso passado, nossas palavras."

And finally: "Estamos no limiar: ou vamos superar nosso modo de vida ou o exterminismo do presente já é o nosso futuro."

Our fear of the future comes from a strong feeling -- a certainty, almost -- that we won't overcome our mode of life and that the exterminism of the present already is our future. 

Notas para a vida no LIMIAR takes place in a dystopian future that is not so distant nor so different from our present. After seeing the piece, an audience member commented that if this is what "viver sem o capitalismo" looks like, he'd rather continue to live inside this life-sucking "cadáver." What he didn't consider is that the dystopian future of the play is not a future "sem o capitalismo" but with it. If this future feels like "o fim do mundo," it's not because capitalism has come to an end but because it hasn't.

But there are other, more hopeful glimpses of the future. For instance, we hear of a anti-capitalist "comunidade" that has disappeared in the year 2058, whose insurrectionary "ditado popular" was, "Não precisamos salvar o capitalismo, precisamos nos salvar dele."

We also hear of the "revolta de 2062," in which a woman rebel "enforcou um soldado com a alça de sua blusa."

We don't know what happens after this revolt of 2062, but it may be the start of a series of uprisings that eventually leads to the Revolução Popular about which we hear in Utopia da Memória (2019), the group's previous work. There, someone from the future recalls "janeiro de 2119, quando a gente comemorou nas ruas os primeiros 100 dias da Revolução Popular."

In a letter dated "2134, ano 15 da Revolução Popular," we learn that a lot of things we think can't be abolished -- "As cercas, os latifúndios, as muralhas, as propriedades, as fortunas, o dinheiro" -- "não existem mais." Perhaps most significantly, we learn that "hoje . . . quando vamos dormir não tememos o amanhã."

 

In Pedagogia da indignação (2000), Freire wrote that "uma das bonitezas do anúncio profético está em que não anuncia o que virá necessariamente, mas o que pode vir, ou não. O seu não é um anúncio fatalista ou determinista. Na real profecia, o futuro não é inexorável, é problemático. Há diferentes possibilidades de futuro."

To me, the act of imagining the Revolução Popular of 2118 is an example of prophetic-utopian annunciation. It's not that this will necessarily happen, but that it could -- and this is the point. "A realidade está grávida de possibilidades," we hear in the prologue of Notas para a vida no LIMIAR, which is to say it is open to "the possibility -- though not the inevitability -- of catastrophes on the one hand and great emancipatory movements on the other" (Löwy, Fire Alarm 110). 

The anunciation of instances of uprising like the revolt of 2062 and the Revolução Popular of 2118 is not meant to foretell but to "tencionar o futuro," opening it up to alternatives -- "ou vamos superar nosso modo de vida ou o exterminismo do presente já é o nosso futuro."

 

"Utopianism is the general label for a number of different ways of dreaming or thinking about, describing or attempting to create a better society" (REP). 

In Utopia da Memória and Notas para a vida no LIMIAR, utopianism is a way of dreaming about "o fim do capitalismo" so as to "reverter o cancelamento do futuro," and, what's more, "arrancar alegria ao futuro" by infusing it with the possibility of a life without capitalism.

reinventamos nosso presente, o futuro de vocês

At the end of Utopia da Memória (2019), a "Mensageira" delivers a series of "fragmentos de correspondência" to the actors. The last of these fragments is addressed to Juliana Liegel. 

"Filha," it begins, "antes de tudo uma pergunta: ao caminhar pela rua ainda sente na boca o gosto amargo da vida?" 

Since the addresser refers to Liegel as "filha" and asks if she still feels the bitter taste of life in the mouth, we assume this is a "mensagem ao futuro" like the ones audience members are invited to leave at the end of the play, which "serão gravados e enterrados para serem desvelados daqui 100 anos em 2120."

The mother's following words complicate this: "Esta é a minha lembrança do passado, mas o amargo da boca alimentou a revolta."

The mother's question now seems rhetorical: she knows that to her daughter the bitter taste of life is not yet a memory of the past (as it is to her) but a taste she still feels in the mouth.

It's as if she wants to assure her daughter that this bitter taste will one day be a memory of the past (if not to her, to those who will come after her), and, just as importantly, that it is food for revolt.

"Hoje," the mother goes on, "posso dizer que quando vamos dormir não tememos o amanhã. Nossas barricadas floriram, das sementes germinaram comida e das bocas coloridas nascem sorrisos. Reinventamos nosso presente, o futuro de vocês."

The mother's "today" is not our past but our future. This "fragment of correspondence" is not from the past to the future but to the past from a revolutionary future -- more specifically, "2134, ano 15 da Revolução Popular."

Then how can the letter be from "Sua mãe"?

Earlier in the play, the same actor, Juliana Liegel, recalls the year 1996 when "Eu vi minha mãe chorando em frente à televisão que noticiava o massacre de Eldorado do Carajás, onde 19 trabalhadores Sem Terra foram assassinados pela Polícia." 

Are these two mothers the same? Has the mother died and been reborn (the same way that "Canudos morre e renasce, morre e renasce")?

Either way, when she reads the letter out loud, talking as if she were the addresser, the actor takes on the role of this mother from her future. 

The more I read and think about this letter, the less the distinctions between "mãe" and "filha," and between "o povo daqui" and "o povo daí" (as the mother refers to those of 2134 and those of 2019), seem to matter.

We would like to be assured that there is no reason to fear tomorrow, as we so strongly do these days, or at least feel that we can reinvent our present, so that the present of those who will come after us will be different.

We would also like to one day send this letter to those who came before us and whose future we inhabit, letting them know that their struggles were not in vain.

utopismo da memória?

 

"Utopianism is the general label for a number of different ways of dreaming or thinking about," "envisaging," "depicting," "describing or attempting to create a better society," often "as a way of achieving significant social change" (REP).

How can we formulate a utopismo da memória as a way of dreaming about a better society?

At the heart of Utopia da Memória (2019) is the act of "criar correpondências."

In some cases, one of the actors creates a "correpondência" between two "fragmentos," such as an image of the Monumento das Castanheiras Mortas and the day "Eu vi minha mãe chorando em frente à televisão que noticiava o massacre de Eldorado do Carajás," or an image of an unspecified street protest and "janeiro de 2119, quando a gente comemorou nas ruas os primeiros 100 dias da Revolução Popular."

In other cases, the "correpondências" are established by "fragmentos" from one generation to another, such as the fictional letters from Maria Bonita "para vocês que habitam o meu futuro" and from a mother in 2134 (the 15th anniversary of the Revolução Popular) to her daugther in 2019 (a hundred years away from this revolution), or the messages left by members of the audience "aos que virão depois de nós" (to borrow from Brecht), which will be stored and opened "daqui 100 anos, em 2120." 

How can we elaborate a utopismo da memória as a way of using such fragments as links to create "una corriente" between past, present, and future generations (to borrow the image used by Valentina Rodríguez in the documentary Nostalgia de la luz)?

las cosas se acaban y se acaban

 

Utopia da Memória (2019), screenshot from video recording.

 

"Por teimosia histórica, permaneceremos mais alguns instantes juntos, juntas, colecionando fragmentos de correspondência, peças desse labirinto quebrado sobre nossas cabeças. E não esqueçam: a Utopia da Memória não pode ter fim" (Utopia da Memória).

“Me mobiliza el hecho de que eliminaron la generación que me sucede, me aislan del futuro, me separan totalmente de la continuidad... y yo quiero recuperarla, a través de la Memoria."

“Soy Paula Martini, hija de desaparecidos. Marcelo, mi hermano, y Valentín, su hijo, son hijo y nieto de desaparecidos. Hace dos años fui mamá. Y yo, me multipliqué en Julia, y los multipliqué a mis padres en ella. Una nieta de desaparecidos que tal vez en el futuro, cuando sepa su historia, se encargue de contarla, de buscarlos, de prolongar el recuerdo. [...] Mis padres, sus abuelos, no están. [...] Mis viejos tuvieron un futuro prohibido. [...] Uno se acostumbra pero no acepta, no encuentra las respuestas. Así como las abuelas buscan a sus nietos, y algunos de esos nietos hoy tenemos hijos buscando a nuestros padres, en algunos años estos nietos buscarán abuelos. No se puede matar la sangre y la memoria.” (Matilde Mellibovsky and Paula Martini, qtd in Liliana Lopes Sanjurjo, Sangue, identidade e verdade: memórias sobre o passado ditatorial na Argentina 143.)

"[Elas] [e]stabelecem assim continuidades entre passado, presente e futuro. A força do imperativo de memória está nos laços de sangue ('no se puede matar la sangre y la memoria') e a chave da continuidade nos vínculos familiares" (Sanjurjo 143).

 

"Irmãos de criação, Zuleide Aparecida, Luiz Carlos, Samuel e Ernesto Carlos, estiveram entre os mais jovens detidos pela ditadura: suas fotografias, marcadas com o carimbo do DOPS, atestam a condição de prisioneiros políticos. Tinham idades entre 2 e 9 anos no momento da prisão. As crianças foram capturadas no Vale do Ribeira em 1970, onde eram cuidados pela avó. Usavam nomes falsos e saíam pouco de casa. Seus pais faziam parte da Vanguarda Popular Revolucionária, na luta armada contra a ditadura. Aos olhos dos militares, os filhos podiam pagar pela militância dos pais. O mais novo deles, Ernesto, ainda bebê, presenciou as torturas do pai. Zuleide Aparecida, Luiz Carlos, Samuel e Ernesto Carlos. As quatro crianças foram forçadas ao exílio com a avó" (Utopia da Memória).

"La Astronomía me ha ayudado de alguna manera a... yo creo que a darle otra dimensión también al tema del dolor, de la ausencia, de la perdida que... cuando uno... cuando uno lo vive de manera íntima, que son momentos también necesarios, el dolor se hace muy apremiante y pensar que es todo parte de un ciclo que no comenzó ni va a terminar en mí, ni en mis padres, ni en mis hijos tal vez, sino que somos todos parte de una corriente, de una energía o de materia que se recicla como ocurre con las estrellas, las estrellas tienen que morir para que surjan otras estrellas, para que surjan planetas, para que surja vida, y en ese juego yo creo que... lo que les paso a mis padres o su ausencia cobra otra dimensión, cobra otro sentido y me libera un poco a mí también de esta... de esta pena y de este dolor grande de sentir que... que las cosas se acaban y se acaban" (Valentina Rodríguez, qtd in Patricio Guzmán, Nostalgia de la luz).

 

". . . then, there is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Then our coming was expected on earth. Then, like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak messianic power, a power on which the past has a claim. Such a claim cannot be settled cheaply" (Walter Benjamin, Thesis II, "On the Concept of History").

". . . we are / endless as the sea, not separate, we die / a million times a day, we are born / a million times, each breath life and death: / get up, put on your shoes, get / started, someone will finish" (Diane di Prima, "Revolutionary Letter #2").

a Utopia da Memória não pode ter fim

 

Utopia da Memória (2019), photo by Fernando Solidade.

"Utopia da Memória. / Parece que estamos no lugar certo. / Estamos? / Sou o mensageiro do futuro ou do passado. / Muito prazer!" These are the opening words of Utopia da Memória. We're introduced to "Utopia da Memória" as a "lugar," but the messenger doesn't seem completely sure about the information he's conveying, such as whether he comes from the future or the past. Even the opening phrase "Utopia da Memória" has a hint of uncertainty, as the complement "da Memória" comes after a pause and is pronounced quietly (in comparison to the loud "Utopia") and almost as if it was a question. The hesitation may be due to the presumably opposite orientations of the two terms; "Utopia," as we hear later in the play, "me lembra futuro," while "Memória" tends to be associated with the past. "Utopia da Memória" brings future and past together, as does the messenger who comes from the future or the past and whose role is to "dar recados e levar recados . . . correspondências entre os que foram e os que virão."

"Lá dentro," the messenger explains as he guides the audience towards an entrance, "apenas fragmentos que vocês vão juntar, na imaginação," the word "imaginação" also pronounced as if it were followed by a question mark. "Sendo assim," he continues more confidently, "tenho o prazer de informar que a Utopia da Memória" -- and here he shouts at the top of his lungs -- "não pode ter fim. / Este percurso sim," he continues quietly, "termina com um convite para vocês enviarem uma mensagem ao futuro. / Qual a sua Utopia? / Não respondam agora. / Tudo será guardado em uma cápsula do tempo." The messenger distinguishes between "Utopia da Memória" and the "percurso" the audience is about to make. The "percurso" ends where the play ends, with the audience leaving messages to the future (perhaps their answers to the question "Qual a sua Utopia?"). "Percurso" is thus another way to describe this "experiência teatral," which is based on the five-year long "percurso de trabalho da Estudo de Cena" ("Sobre a Montagem").

"Utopia da Memória" seems to refer to the physical "lugar" the audience enters and goes through. If this is the case, how can this place not have and end? Once the audience has finished the "percurso" and exited the place, won't this "Utopia da Memória" have come to an end? And how does the conclusion that "a Utopia da Memória não pode ter fim" follow from the previous statement ("Lá dentro apenas fragmentos que vocês vão juntar, na imaginação. / Sendo assim . . .")? One way to think of this is to distinguish between utopia and utopianism. The place "Utopia da Memória" (like the "percurso" through it) has an end, but the act of joining fragments with the imagination can and has to go on. This act of joining or (as another messenger puts it towards the end of the play) making "correspondências" between fragments ("fragmentos de memória" from the past and the future) can be understood as a form of utopianism, a particular way of "dreaming or thinking about . . . a better society." Differently from the "percurso" through the "lugar" called "Utopia da Memória," this utopismo "da Memória" "não pode ter fim."

And perhaps "utopia" in "Utopia da Memória" doesn't only mean "lugar," but also "dream" (both Freire and Boal used these two terms almost interchangeably). This seems to be the case in the question "Qual a sua Utopia?" At the end of the "percurso," the audience is invited to leave messages to the future, sharing their utopia or dream with to those "que virão." Before this moment, the actor Carolina Maluf receives a fictional letter from Maria Bonita with a message "para vocês que habitam o meu futuro" in which she shares her "esperança de que no século 21 tudo seja diferente." If we use our imagination to join this letter to the messenger's opening words, we see that the letter from Maria Bonita is a "mensagem ao futuro" with her answer to the question "Qual a sua Utopia?" The utopia of Maria Bonita, "planta[da] nessa terra," lives in our memory (the memory of those who inhabit her future), the same way that our utopias one day will live in the memory of those who inhabit our future, "those born later," as Brecht put it. This "Utopia da Memória" "não pode ter fim."

Still in this opening part of the play, the messenger delivers the "Primeiro fragmento de correspondência" to the actor Marilza Batista. It's an empty picture frame. The actor shows it to the audience against a curtain made of lona preta (the material commonly used by workers of the Landless Workers' Movement [MST] and the Homeless Workers' Movement [MTST] to build temporary dwellings) and says, "Aqui está a foto / da nossa cidade / que nós construímos / por cima da água. / Uma nova cidade. / Casas como montanhas de metal / e a eletricidade dourada / a ilumina noites afora. / Fora feito / por nossa estirpe ou por outra / com ela parecida. (Pausa.) Do que vocês lembram ao ver essa foto?"

As soon as the audience goes "Lá dentro" and the first scene of the "percurso" starts, another actor shows a photo of the Açude de Cocorobó, in Bahia. The actor explains that "Sua obra foi planejada durante a ditadura Vargas e finalizada durante a ditadura civil militar," and that "embaixo dessas águas está o exato local onde era o Arraial de Canudos, também conhecido como Belo Monte, comunidade de homens e mulheres pobres e excluídos, que ousaram construir um mundo utópico onde todas, todos, viviam do trabalho comum. Suas fronteiras eram moventes, fluidas. Em Belo Monte crescia a autonomia sertaneja que recusava a fome, o desrespeito. A elite teve medo e acionou as forças armadas. Esse povo venceu três expedições militares. Na quarta expedição, no ano de 1897, a República Brasileira invadiu o vilarejo. 5.200 casas foram consumidas pelo fogo. Os sobreviventes reconstruiram a cidade. Canudos renasceu. Então, em meio a ditadura militar, no ano de 1969, quando esse açude ficou pronto, Canudos foi novamente consumida, dessa vez consumida pelas águas. Como uma Fênix sertaneja, Canudos morre e renasce, morre e renasce... renasce..."

Listening to this, we recall the actor who was holding the empty picture frame. Is she someone from the future, telling us of a "nova cidade" of Canudos built "por cima da água"? Is she a descendant of the sobreviventes of the massacre of Canudos, like Dona Durú, who have built a "nova Canudos" near the Açude de Cocorobó? Is she an inhabitant of Nova Canudos, the the MTST occupation built in 2017 in São Bernardo do Campo, in São Paulo, where thousands have built their dwellings with the same lona preta against which the actor places the picture frame? Is she all of these and countless others? Like a "Fênix sertaneja, Canudos morre e renasce." Like Canudos and its "mundo utópico," "a Utopia da Memória não pode" and will not have "fim."

olhei para trás e só vi destruição

 

Utopia da Memória (2019), photo by Fernando Solidade.

 

"The concept of progress  must be grounded in the idea of catastrophe. That things are 'status quo' is the catastrophe . . . Strindberg's idea: hell is not something that awaits us, but this life here and now" (Benjamin qtd in Löwy, Fire Alarm 63).

Scene VIII of Utopia da Memória juxtaposes a nightmare had by Mateus, "menino de 15 anos morador do município de Conceição do Mato Dentro, Minas Gerais, cidade atingida pela Mineradora Anglo American," with passages from Benjamin's Thesis IX of "On the Concept of History." As we're told earlier in the play, "O Brasil é um dos maiores produtores de minério de ferro e detém uma das maiores reserves de 'terras raras,' matéria prima para a fabricação de tablets e celulares. A exploração mineral no Brasil é responsável por centenas de crimes ambientais e sociais, como o de Mariana em 2015 e Brumadinho em janeiro deste ano [2019]," which resulted in hundreds of deaths, most of them of black and brown poor people. In the play, we're told that the tailing dam then still in the process of being built by Anglo American in Conceição do Mato Dentro will be seven times larger than the one that collapsed in Mariana and 24 times larger than the one that collapsed in Brumadinho.

In his nightmare, Mateus is running away from death, which appears in the form of "aquela pessoa vestida de preto com aquela foice," but also of "água, água, água" coming in his direction. Mateus is "no meio do caminho."  "Na minha frente," he describes, "só via salvação," but keeping him from reaching salvation was a "barreira" with a sign "área restrita" and the logo of Anglo American. "Atrás de mim só tinha destruição," "só via caveira, gente morta, pessoa morta... até familiares meus mesmo sendo mortos..." In Mateus' nightmare, salvation is the property of the mining company (and the "empresas de tecnologia" that depend on the "exploração de minério" for the production of "tablets e celulares") responsible for the destruction he sees behind him. In a way, salvation "na minha frente" and destruction "atrás de mim" are one and the same, since the "barreira" can be understood as yet another barragem, even larger than the one that collapsed, which are presented to the communities they destroy as "salvation" in the form of "progress."

In Benjamin's Thesis, progress is figured as a "storm" meant to evoke "catastrophe and destruction," but also the fact that, "for conformist ideology, Progress is a 'natural, phenomenon, governed by the laws of nature, and as such inevitable and irresistible'" (Löwy 66). In Mateus' nightmare, progress is "aquela lama, aquela água" released by the collapsed dams in Mariana and Brumadinho. This image of progress and the destruction it leaves behind de-naturalizes them. At the same time (and perhaps because of the juxtaposition with Benjamin's Thesis), we're reminded that "conformist ideology" insists on describing such "crimes ambientais e sociais" with terms like "disaster," "tragedy," and even "accident," all of which suggest a sense of inevitability and lack of responsibility. ("Em 2017," we hear later in the play, "a Mineradora Vale," which owned the dams in Mariana and Brumadinho, "lucrou 17 bilhões e seiscentos milhões de reais.)

When death was about to catch him, Mateus heard "tipo um aviso! E eu acordei com o barulho. Um caminhão apitando, dando uma buzina bem forte." This noise "lembra" the noise of the "sirenes de alarme" installed in areas where dams are built to warn inhabitants in case of a collapse. As determined by law, companies like Anglo American also conduct simulations of "rompimento da barragem de rejeitos" with the goal of training the "comunidades que vivem a jusante da barragem para qualquer situação de emergência," evidencing the "situação de emergência" in which these already vulnerable communities are forced to live in the name of progress. In January 2020, shortly after Utopia da Memória was first performed, the "sirenes de alarme" in Conceição do Mato Dentro were irregularly sounded by Anglo American, causing inhabitants to experience "durante várias horas, verdadeira situação de rompimento, rememorando os desastres ocorridos em Mariana e em Brumadinho e sofrendo com intensa dor e sofrimento psíquico pelo temor de perda de vidas humanas e de bens pessoais." Darcília Pires de Sena, an inhabitant of Conceição do Mato Dentro whose recorded account of the effects of Anglo American in the area appears in Utopia da Memória (11:24), describes these sirens as existing "para marcar a minha morte, a hora que eu vou morrer, porque ninguém vai aguentar correr. E se a gente estiver dormindo? Então sirene para nós aqui não vale nada. Eu não assino por sirene nenhuma. Deixa nós morrer em silêncio." The sirens mark the death of those whose lives are deemed to matter less than what can be extracted from their land -- a death that is known in advance, simulated, always lurking behind "vestida de preto com aquela foice," "com aquela lama, aquela água," as in Mateus' nightmare.

According to Löwy, "in a sense, [Benjamin's] whole work," particularly "On the Concept of History" and Thesis IX, which "sums up . . . the whole of the document" (62), "can be regarded as a kind of 'fire alarm'" -- "tipo um aviso!" as Mateus exclaims -- "to his contemporaries, a warning bell attempting to draw attention to the imminent dangers threatening them, to new catastrophes looming on the horizon" (16). This is another way to understand the "barulho" that Mateus heard, and that Utopia da Memória attempts to sound, drawing attention to the "situação de emergência" that is the status quo, "this life here and now." "Eu olhei para trás e só vi destruição," Mateus recalls of his nightmare, but the destruction behind him is not so much a "pile of debris . . . grow[ing] towards the sky," as in Benjamin's image (qtd in Löwy 62), but a trail extending for miles and miles, from the past into the present and future unless we do something to stop it.

This trail of destruction works as "a poignant image of the catastrophes, massacres and other bloody works of history" (64). In scene IX of Utopia da Memória, one of the actors holds in one hand a photograph of the aftermath of the dam collapse in Mariana in 2015 and in the other a photo of the aftermath of the massacre in Carandiru in 1992 (image 11/15). Earlier, in scene IV, fragments of the speech by Ivan Sartori, "relator do processo que absolveu os 74 policiais militares envolvidos no massacre do Carandiru que resultou em 111 presos assassinados" are juxtaposed with fragments of two speeches by Bolsonaro, from 2016 and 2018, in which he advocates for the use of gun violence by "pessoas de bem" (the police and landwoners) against the "marginais vermelhos" of the Landless Workers' Movement (MST). Just as Sartori denied the massacre of 111 incarcerated people in Carandiru -- "Não houve massacre. Houve obediência hierárquica. House legítima defesa. Houve estrito cumprimento legal" -- Bolsonaro implicitly denied the massacre of 21 landless workers in Eldorado do Carajás in 1996. In 2019 Bolsonaro declared his intention to concede pardon to military police officers involved in these two massacres, which, in the case of the Carandiru massacre, he did just eight days before leaving office in 2022. In Benjamin's Thesis, the "storm" of progress "is responsible for an unremitting catastrophe and a pile of ruins rising up to the sky" (63). In Utopia da Memória, the trail of destruction that keeps getting longer and longer (and that includes the destruction of lives in Carandiru, Eldorado dos Carajás, Mariana, and Brumadinho) is inextricable from the "bandeira da 'ordem e progresso.'"

Looking at the trail of destruction, "Ele" (Benjamin's angel, the boy Mateus) "gostaria de deter-se para acordar os mortos e juntar os fragmentos." We recall the words of the "Mensageiro" at the "entrada" of the play --  "Lá dentro apenas fragmentos que vocês vão juntar, na imaginação." Is this what we're called on to do in this "experiência teatral" as we embark on a "percurso" of the "lugar" called "Utopia da Memória"?

reinventar o passado e inventar o futuro

 

Utopia da Memória (2019), screenshot from video recording.

 

"O teatro . . . nos proporciona a possibilidade de . . . fundir memória e imaginação -- que são dois processos psíquicos indissociáveis -- de, no presente, reinventar o passado e inventar o futuro" (Boal, Teatro Legislativo 44).

"[N]ão será [a memória] apenas um espaço onde a imaginação se exerce, onde organiza registros de emoções, pensamentos, sensações havidas, onde inventa o futuro e reinventa o passado? (34).

In the final scene of Utopia da Memória, each of the actors holds a photograph and shares what it reminds them of. One actor holds a photo of the Monumento das Castanheiras Mortas and says, "Esta foto me lembra o ano de 1996. Eu vi minha mãe chorando em frente à televisão que noticiava o massacre de Eldorado do Carajás, onde 19 trabalhadores Sem Terra foram assassinados pela Polícia. Alguns meses depois, na PUC de São Paulo, ela colaborou com uma exposição de fotos de Sebastião Salgado sobre o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Sem Terra, o MST." A photo of the monument to the landless workers who were murdered by the police on 17 April 1996 "lembra" the sight of the mother crying as she watched the news of the massacre on television.

Then, another actor holds a photo and says, "Esta foto me lembra janeiro de 2119, quando a gente comemorou nas ruas os primeiros 100 dias da Revolução Popular." Since there is no photo of this imagined future event, the group uses a photo of the actors Roberto Kroupa (who is holding the photo) and Juliana Liegel at one of the manifestações organized by the Frente Única da Cultura in São Paulo in 2017. It's as if the person we're hearing is an inhabitant of our distant future (he uses the subject "a gente" and the verb comemorar in the past tense), whose memory of this celebration is triggered by the photo. It doesn't really matter whether the photo has any direct relation to the Revolução Popular; it's a photo of people protesting in the streets -- and, it seems, celebrating (see 1:02:42 of the video) -- and thus it reminds him of the street celebration of the first hundred days of the Popular Revolution.

At the start and end of the play we're told by a messenger that "Utopia da Memória" is a place -- "Utopia da Memória / Parece que estamos no lugar certo" -- where we'll have to "juntar" or "fazer correspondências" between "fragmentos" "na imaginação." The preposition "na" suggests a notion of imagination as a space in which we can join seemingly disconnected fragments, including "fragmentos de memória." In the second quotation at the top, Boal refers to memory as "um espaço onde a imaginação se exerce, onde organiza registros de emoções, pensamentos, sensações havidas, onde inventa o futuro e reinventa o passado? (34). I find Boal's description (in the first quotation) of imagination and memory as "dois processos psíquicos indissociáveis" more helpful (4), as it invites us to think of the acts of imagining and remembering as (indissociable) forms of joining or making correspondences between fragments.

How do we join the photo of a past manifestação with what we're hearing about January 2119? We're told at the start of the play we'll have to join fragments, "na" or with the imagination, but also, "tragam junto suas memórias, elas serão necessariás." I may not know when or where the protest in the photo took place, but the photo "me lembra" when my partner and I marched across the Brooklyn Bridge chanting with hundreds, perhaps thousands of protestors all the way to Abolition Park (as the occupation at City Hall had been renamed) in the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd. The Revolução Popular of Utopia da Memória may never happen, but the photo "me lembra" that struggles for justice are happening and will continue to happen till "tudo seja diferente."

ainda sente na boca o gosto amargo da vida?

 

 

Utopia da Memória (2019), screenshot from video recording.

 

". . . then there is a secret agreement between past generations and the present one. Then our coming was expected on earth. Then, like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak messianic power, a power on which the past has a claim. Such a claim cannot be settled cheaply" (Benjamin, Thesis II of "On the Concept of History").

"The defeated of June 1848 . . . await from us not just the remembrance of their suffering, but reparation for past injustices and the achievement of their social utopia" (Löwy, Fire Alarm 32).

 

The final part of Utopia da Memória is made up of four fictional letters delivered to the actors by a "Mensageira." The first three are sent by people from the past: the cangaceira Maria Bonita, murdered by the police on 28 July 1938; the funkeiro MC Daleste, murdered on 7 July 2013; and a soldado who participated in the massare of Canudos in 1896-7.

In the letter to the actor Carolina Maluf, Maria Bonita speaks to us "que habitam o meu futuro" from a time when "As cercas do latifúndio crescem e criam raízes," "O governo levanta a bandeira da 'ordem e progresso,'" and "O fascismo corre como serpente pelas ruas das cidades e pelas estradas e trilhas da caatinga." It's heartbreaking to hear of her "esperança que no século 21 tudo seja diferente" just a few days after Bolsonaristas stormed government buildings in Brasília in another demonstration that we live in a moment in the 21st century when fascism slithers like a serpent through Brazil and many other parts of the world. For us, inhabitants of her future at the start of 2023, the hope of Maria Bonita already begins to feel like a "saudade do que deveria ter sido" and was not. Her closing statement that "Esta carta" (like her esperança) "é para vocês que habitam o meu futuro" rings like a demand for us not only to remember the suffering of the dead but to stand up against fascism and do what we can to fulfill the longing of past generations -- of our generation -- for a future in which "tudo seja diferente."

The fourth and final letter, sent to the actor Juliana Liegel, is signed "Com amor, / Sua mãe" and dated "2134, ano 15 da Revolução Popular." It comes from a future moment in the 21st century in which the hope of Maria Bonita has been fulfilled and everything is different -- "As cercas, os latifúndios, as muralhas, as propriedades, as fortunas, o dinheiro... não existem mais. São fotos de Museu, é preciso lembrar. Aqui a memória é o combustível da revolução." It opens with a question: "ao caminhar pela rua ainda sente na boca o gosto amargo da vida?" The mother's question makes me think of "saudade do que deveria ter sido," and whether this yearning for what should have been is part of what leaves us walking the streets with a bitter taste in the mouth. Yes, we still feel it, hoping one day it will be a "lembrança do passado," as it has become to the mother; "mas," she assures us, however bitter this taste may be (she knows, she has felt it too), and however much we want to be rid of it, "o amargo da boca alimentou a revolta," which is why she seems to remember it fondly.

How can the actor's mother send her a letter from the year 2134? Is the mother an older version of the daughter sending a message to herself in the past (the same way audience members are invited at the of the play to send messages to the future), letting her younger self know that she won't have to taste "o gosto amargo da vida" forever in her mouth, at least not if she uses it to feed her spirit of revolt? In Thesis XII of "On the Concept of History," Benjamin claimed that the present "task of liberation" is carried out "in the name of generations of the downtrodden" (of those whose future we inhabit), and that those fighting against oppression "are nourished by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than the ideal of liberated grandchildren." The letter complicates Benjamin's formulation, for (chronologically speaking) it presents a descendant of the daughter (and of "o povo daí," as the author of the letter refers to the people of 2019) as her liberated ancestor. How is "o povo daqui" (of 2134), "que quando vamos dormir não tememos o amanhã," our ancestors and our descendants and ourselves all at the same time?

saudade do que deveria ter sido

 

 

Utopia da Memória (2019), photo by Fernando Solidade.

In the final part of Utopia da Memória, by the Brazilian theater group Estudo de Cena, a chorus repeats the phrase "saudade do que deveria ter sido."

According to the dictionary, saudade is a "Sentimento nostálgico e melancólico associado à recordação de pessoa ou coisa ausente, distante ou extinta, ou à ausência de coisas, prazeres e emoções experimentadas e já passadas, consideradas bens positivos e desejáveis."

Still according to the dictionary, saudade is also a type of song, a "Cantiga entoada por marinheiros em alto-mar." Perhaps an example is the song "Marinheiro Só," "uma cantiga de roda tradicional brasileira, que era cantada pelos pescadores e marinheiros, antes de deixarem suas casas e famílias para trás para embarcarem em seus ofícios pelos mares," which has been interpreted by artists such as Clementina de Jesus and Caetano Veloso.

In Utopia da Memória, the phrase "saudade do que deveria ter sido" is uttered by the chorus like a song (see 01:07:26), the word saudade pronounced slowly, marking its three syllables, followed by a brief pause before the rest of the phrase -- which derives its (perhaps melancholy) power from the sudden joining in of voices and the alliteration of the "d" sound (saudade do que deveria ter sido).

I can't stop thinking of this phrase. How can we feel saudade not of something that was (and no longer is) but of something that (could and) should have been but was not?

I'm reminded of a passage from Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch (to which I keep returning over and over again): "Capitalism was the counter-revolution that destroyed the possibilities that had emerged from the anti-feudal struggle -- possibilities, which, if realized, might have spared us the immense destruction of lives and the natural environment that has marked the advance of capitalist relations worldwide" (21). When I read this passage I feel saudade of these possibilities and what their realization "might have spared us."

"Saudade do que deveria ter sido;" saudade (like the utopia of the play's title) "made of" or "originated from" our memory of past unrealized possibilities? If we can feel "saudade do que deveria ter sido," can we feel "saudade do que não existiu [ainda]," a saudade made of or originated from our "memória do futuro"? "Qual a sua saudade do que não existiu? Qual a sua memória do futuro?," which perhaps are different ways of asking "Qual a sua Utopia?," the word utopia synonymous with "memory of the future" and the feeling of saudade (for what hasn't existed yet) it gives rise to. 

At one point in Utopia da Memória, one of the actors looks at a photograph (of a protest) and recalls "janeiro de 2119, quando a gente comemorou nas ruas os primeiros 100 dias da Revolução Popular." The actor could be a representative of "os que virão" after us, someone who inhabits our future (the same way that we, for Maria Bonita, are the ones "que habitam o meu futuro") and is remembering the celebration of the first hundred days of the Popular Revolution in January 2119, a hundred years after "janeiro de 2019," when "o atual presidente assinou o decreto que facilita a posse de armas no Brasil." For this comrade of a future generation, the celebration of the first hundred days of the revolution (and the revolution itself) is a memory of the past, but for us it's a memory of the future, of a "passado que virá." The actor gives us one answer to the question "Qual a sua Utopia," your "memória do futuro?" It's a popular revolution that would abolish "As cercas, os latifúndios, as muralhas, as propriedades, as fortunas, o dinheiro..."

I feel saudade of January 2119 when we'll fill the streets to celebrate the first hundred days of the Revolução Popular. Will this one day be someone else's "saudade do que deveria ter sido" and was not?