Em cena: o Sete de Abril e o teatro dos corpos na Pelotas oitocentista

Abstract

This research has dealt with the theater Sete de Abril de Pelotas, in the period of the nineteenth century, since its founding in 1834. Its title: "On stage: the Seven April and the theater of bodies in Pelotas nineteenth century" is a reference to the double meaning of the theatricality addressed here: on the one hand, the arts who find space on the theater stage, and the other, the social dramatization taken by bodies transiting in this space. These two well established meanings, constitute a theatrical landscape. The theater is the main intermedium of entertainment of the nineteenth century, and Sete de Abril, one of the first in the state and one of the oldest in the country, has an undeniable importance in Pelotas collective memory. The theater of this period led to extreme adjustments and major conflicts for the setting up of an urban society in transformation. We have at the same time, in the theatrical space, through the personalities outlined by Modernity, the texts and theatrical genres and the ways of seeing art, the reaffirmation of established social places, and the strains and ruptures of this society was changing quickly. Thus, the main object of the research is the social relationships that happen in this space, the conflicts and social adjustments that come from making art, but that exceeded the walls of the theater building and permeated a specific society model. The focus is directed to the reflection of this relationship starting from a History of the Body discussion, aiming to identify who’s bodies were those that transited and built this space, and at the same time, to assign a “carnal” atmosphere to a research that has as object a place with an excess of bodies. To this end, it was analyzed mainly the illustrated newspapers of the period, which enabled this approach because of its peculiar features: prying, caricatural, ironic, humorous, satirical. So, for all of the above, I tried to investigate the place that occupied the theater Sete de Abril in the nineteenth-century society of Pelotas, seeking, from reflections about the body, what were these bodies that were involved in this space, and their relation to the structures of thought and artistic movements that have influenced and changed the nineteenth-century personalities. And, therefore, to approach the social practices related to this space.