The Bicha Louca (Crazy Fag) Character and the Construction of a Network of Actorial Work in Brazil during the Civil-Military Dictatorship (1964-1985)

Le Personnage Bicha Louca et la Construction d’un Réseau de Travaux Actoriaux au Brésil de la Dictature Civilo-Militaire (1964-1985)

ABSTRACT

The article proposes the existence of an actorial network that created a character-type of the male homosexual, which could be called the bicha louca (crazy fag). Actors such as Nestor Montemar, Raul Cortez, Ítalo Rossi and Emiliano Queiroz participated in this network, contributing to the theatre being a space of visibility for the LGBT population and of resistance to the moral and political repression in the period of the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Keywords:
Brazilian Theatre; Performing Arts History; LGBT; Dictatorship

RÉSUMÉ

L’article propose l’existence d’un réseau actorial qui crée un caractère type de l’homosexuel masculin, que l’on pourrait qualifier de pédé fou. Des acteurs tels que Nestor Montemar, Raul Cortez, Ítalo Rossi et Emiliano Queiroz ont participé à ce réseau, contribuant à faire du théâtre un espace de visibilité pour la population LGBT et de résistance à la répression morale et politique pendant la période de la dictature civilo-militaire brésilienne (1964-1985).

Mots-clés:
Théâtre Brésilien; Histoire du Spectacle; LGBT; Dictature

RESUMO

O artigo propõe a existência de uma rede atorial criadora de uma personagem-tipo do homossexual masculino, que poderia ser chamada de bicha louca. Participaram dessa rede atores como Nestor Montemar, Raul Cortez, Ítalo Rossi e Emiliano Queiroz, contribuindo para que o teatro fosse um espaço de visibilidade para a população LGBT e de resistência à repressão moral e política durante o período da ditadura civil-militar brasileira (1964-1985).

Palavras-chave:
Teatro Brasileiro; História do Espetáculo; LGBT; Ditadura

Introduction

In this article, we present and discuss the hypothesis of a networked actorial process to construct the male homosexual character between the late 1960s and the early 1970s, against the background of the ideological devices and apparatuses of the State that operated during the civil-military dictatorship. The article is the result of the research project Diversidade sexual e teatro no Brasil: visibilidade, representação e minoritarismo (Sexual diversity and theatre in Brazil: visibility, representation and minorityism), which is funded by Edital Demanda Universal CNPq/2018.

Much of the primary sources research was carried out within the scope of the Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira portal, available online. The queries were made based on expressions such as the names of the actors and parts of the plays’ titles, in addition to certain keywords such as bicha (fag) and homosexual. Some collections of published reviews were also consulted. From the material obtained, we highlight the recurrence of terms pertaining to the semantic field of exaggeration in relation to the semantic field of restraint, as can be seen in the analysis presented below.

From the historiographical point of view, academic production on the relations between theatre in Brazil and sexual diversity is still very scant. Publications in periodicals and completed theses and dissertations deal with theatrical performances from 1990s and, above all, the 21^st century, based on queer studies. Added to this is the scarcity of reflections on sexual diversity during the civil-military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. In this sense, the book compiled by Green and Quinalha (2014) brings together texts by renowned researchers on the issue of sexual diversity during the aforementioned period, with very different approaches, but it does not have a specific chapter on artistic or theatrical manifestations. The book by João Silvério Trevisan (2018), Devassos no Paraíso (Perverts in Paradise), which had its fourth revised and expanded edition in 2018, is certainly one of the main manuals on sexual diversity in Brazil, with a section entitled A arte de ser ambígua (The art of being ambiguous), and provides a general overview of the performing arts, ranging from the 18^th century to the end of the 1980s, although it is not a book that specialises in the area of theatre. Finally, there is perhaps the only book that addresses the presence of male homosexuality in dramaturgy produced in Brazil: Tentative transgressions, by Severino J. Albuquerque (2004). It is a book written in English by a Brazilian researcher living in the United States, whose approach focuses on dramaturgy, and discusses some Brazilian texts from the 1970s and subsequent decades, with a particular focus on the presence of characters carrying the HIV virus¹.

Sexual Diversity and the Civil-Military Dictatorship (1964-1985)

In the history of the LGBT movement in Brazil, the contribution of male homosexual characters and artists on our stages between 1964 and 1985, the period of civil-military dictatorship is yet to be pondered². In this article, our goal is to compare the repression of homosexuals in Brazilian society during that period with the relative visibility of homosexuality on the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo stages, and reflect on how national actors played these roles.

Green and Quinalha (2014) put together a collection of reflections, Ditadura e homossexualidades (Dictatorship and homosexualities), in which several aspects of the relationship referred to in the title of the work are discussed. As evidenced throughout the book, the repression of sexual diversity and all types of behaviour that eschewed heteronormative and cisgender standards was no small matter for the authorities of the period or for the population in general. The control of morals and decency counted on a powerful legislative apparatus and institutional devices such as, for example, the Divisão de Censura de Diversões Públicas (Public Entertainment Censorship Division - DCDP), the morality police stations and decree-law number 869, of 12 September 1969 (Brazil, 1969), instituting courses in moral and civic education; Brazilian social and political organisation; and studies of Brazilian problems. Although 1985 was regarded as the end of the dictatorial period, many legal instruments remained in force for a number of years. The repeal of the cited decree-law, for example, only occurred through law 8.663, of 14 June 1993 (Brazil, 1993) (cf. Rodrigues, 2014).

The censorship of three well-known homosexuals was highlighted in the press in 1972. It concerned a recommendation to TV stations to remove Denner Pamplona de Abreu, Clodovil Hernandez and Clóvis Bornay from their programming schedules. According to Sarmento (1972, p. 3, author’s italics)

[...] the last straw that led the authorities to recommend the extreme measure took place on the Sunday program of Silvio Santos, in São Paulo, when Clovis Bornay, ‘very coolly’, danced a waltz - wearing high heels and a wig - with the producer, immediately provoking hundreds of calls in protest. The next day, endorsing the outrage of families, newspapers in São Paulo published photos of Bornay dancing with Silvio Santos, with captions such as: ‘This cannot go on’.

Furthermore, according to Sarmento (1972, p. 3), “[...] last Tuesday [02 May 1972], the directors of broadcasting stations all over the country received a delicate letter from the Federal Censorship Office advising them not to show the two dressmakers and the champion of the Municipal costume parade on their programmes”. The fact is that Clodovil was replaced by Lúcio Mauro on the panel of judges for Chacrinha, Denner lost his contract with TV Itacolomi, leaving behind his program called Denner é um luxo, as well as Flávio Cavalcanti’s panel of judges, while Clóvis Bornay left Silvio Santos’ jury³.

In relation to newspapers, Rodrigues (2014) addresses the launching of criminal investigations and/or criminal proceedings against journalists who in any way handled the issue of homosexuality in the press of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro: the first of them was Celso Curi, who published the famous Coluna do Meio column in the São Paulo edition of the newspaper Última Hora, and was charged in 1977 with “[...] promoting licentiousness and homosexuality specifically [...]” (Rodrigues, 2014, p. 221). 221), only being acquitted in 1979; in 1978, 11 journalists were also accused of “[...] making unhealthy apologia for homosexuality [...]” (Rodrigues, 2014, p. 222) by publishing a story entitled O poder homossexual (Homosexual power) in IstoÉ magazine; still in 1978, journalists from Interview magazine were also subject to a criminal investigation for publishing a story with homosexual content; finally, in 1979, the editors of the newspaper Lampião da Esquina were taken to Dops (Department of Political and Social Order) (Rodrigues, 2014, p. 220-222), before also being cleared. One complaint, however, resulted in the imprisonment of the journalist Roosevelt Antônio Chrysóstomo de Oliveira, from the staff of Lampião da Esquina. Accused of heterosexual paedophilia, he was arrested on 04 July, 1981, and acquitted on 17 March, 1983, when he was finally released⁴. The accusations of attacks on morals and decency, based on article 17 of the Press Law (Brazil, 1967)⁵ extended throughout the 1970s, obliging us to consider the importance of the presence of homosexual characters and artists on the stages of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the period from 1964 to 1985 and, more specifically, in the 1970s when, in many other instances, acts that made male homosexuality and other forms of sexual and gender dissidence visible were being opposed.

Sexual Diversity in the Theatre: Brazil, the beginning of the 1970s

Another example of the fight against the explicitness of sexual and gender dissidence, which begins to bring us closer to the theatre scene of the era, was the prohibition of travesti dances - men dressed in women’s clothes - in the early 1970s (cf. Green, 2000)⁶. However, as Rita Rodrigues (2014, p. 207) notes, “[...] in the year 1972, which is when the expulsion of homosexuals from television took place, travesti actresses seem to resume their activities: Valéria returns to the country and premieres the show Misto quente that same year⁷; in 1973, Rogéria premieres Por via das dúvidas, under the direction of Agildo Ribeiro”⁸. Certainly “[...] the Brazilian authoritarian state did not act in a linear or wholesale manner [...]” (Rodrigues, 2014, p. 222), and the censors probably took into consideration the quantitative differences in audiences between theatre, television, radio and cinema. One must also factor in the differences between states and municipalities, some being more conservative than others, which meant that in certain places, even around 1985, the crackdowns on the LGBT population actually intensified rather than diminished them, as in São Paulo. Furthermore, there were differences between censors. In 1982, Nestor Montemar recognised, for example, that the censor Solange Hernandez had vetoed some harmless details that impaired the smooth running of the show, while the censor who preceded her seemed to have a better understanding of theatrical language (Peleias, 1982).

Thus, what we can see is effectively a framework of struggles in Brazilian society throughout the civil-military dictatorship in the scope of what the conservative and authoritarian project called morals and decency. As such, during the 1960s, the repression of the LGBT population and, once again, more specifically of male homosexuals and travestis, is intense in Belo Horizonte with police raids on bars and nightclubs, resulting in arrests, revocation of permits to operate and establishments being closed by the authorities, but also in the opening of new establishments, and the staging of shows and parades by the populace⁹. In São Paulo, police patrols were also frequent, and arrests of the LGBT population were recurrent. These rounds targeted lesbians, male homosexuals and travestis and persisted until the early 1980s¹⁰. As of 1976, and ordinance 390 from the Delegacia Seccional Centro (Central Sectional Police Station), the arrests of travestis were authorized for the purpose of investigation, in order to create a registry of travestis in São Paulo city. In this way, the evidence points to the theatrical shows of the period in question as places of resistance, visibility and most likely sociability for the LGBT population.

The Excesses of Nestor Montemar’s Bicha Louca

Within the limits of this article, we will focus our reflection on Nestor Montemar’s performance in the role of Pedro, from Greta Garbo, quem diria, acabou no Irajá, which premiered in 1973, in Teatro Santa Rosa, Rio de Janeiro¹¹. Fernando de Mello’s text depicts a sexual and amorous relationship between two men: Pedro and Renato. The former is a nurse who admires the actress Greta Garbo, and the latter is a young country boy who arrives in the city of Rio de Janeiro with the intention of studying medicine¹². In the premiere cast were Nestor Montemar (Pedro), Mário Gomes (Renato) and Arlete Sales (Mary), under the direction of Léo Jusi, with sets and costumes by Colmar Diniz.

In relation to Mello’s theatre script, an article by Yan Michalski (1973) describes a tension between comicality and pain - or seriousness - that will be recurrent in several reviews and interviews about the production Greta Garbo, quem diria, acabou no Irajá.

What is most praiseworthy about Greta Garbo is the skill with which the author handles the comic treatment of a desperate theme, balancing, in at least 75% of the text, an efficient humoristic approach with a compassionate vision of two human beings who find themselves in a borderline situation of pain and moral decadence (Michalski, 1973, p. 2).

He reiterates:

The coexistence of Pedro, an ageing homosexual at the end of his career, and Renato, a handsome young man from the countryside in search of affirmation in Rio, provokes almost constant laughter; but this laughter is not the kind that diminishes the human dimension of the characters but, on the contrary, is of the type that throws an enriching - though cruelly critical - light on their human essence (Michalski, 1973, p. 2).

Sometimes, the reference to this tension is followed by a devaluation of the ending of both the text and the play, deemed to be pejoratively melodramatic. After praising it, Michalski analyses some of Greta Garbo’s weak points and concludes: “[...] the main fault lies not in this, but in the rupture of the general tone, from the comic to the melodramatic, which damages the finale” (Michalski, 1973, p. 2).

Aldomar Conrado (1973, p. 19, author’s italics) also addresses the same tension that we highlight here, but referring more so to the actorial work:

Nestor Montemar is in his finest moment in theatre. The embittered loon who dreamed of being Greta Garbo is both moving and convincing. Perhaps at the end of the piece, greater restraint would have made a deeper impact. We don’t know, however, if the sudden embracing of the melodramatic comes from the actor or the direction itself.

After pointing out the deficiencies of the text in relation to the character of Mary, played by Arlete Sales, and of the actress, as a consequence of the character’s fragility, Conrado (1973, p. 19) concludes: “[...] the three actors manage, together, to perform the task proposed by the text and the direction: shake up the audience with plenty of laughter and then render it silent and perplexed, with the bitterness and cruelty that unexpectedly burst onto the stage”.

At stake here seems to be the idea that at the moment that restraint is lost, and the melodramatic excess invades the scene, the play becomes devalued. It is not, however, only the excess of the melodramatic tone that should be criticised, but also that of the cheap laughs. According to Michalski (1973, p. 2, our italics),

In Greta Garbo, Nestor Montemar’s performance is in every way superior to his previous work, as he swaps his habitual composition of an exhibitionist homosexual, in the tone of revue theatre, for a heartfelt interpretation of a tormented human being, who happens to be homosexual. It is only at certain moments, which do not seriously detract from the work as a whole, that he fails to curb occasional small excesses of cheap laughs.

For the critics, therefore, the issue seems to be this excess - whether comic or melodramatic -, which could lead us to an interesting discussion regarding the actorial performance of a clearly popular nature, but on which we cannot dwell in this article, so we will leave the discussion about the excesses in the performance of the bicha louca (crazy fag) character for a later time. It is also important to note in this criticism the way Yan Michalski refers to the performance of Montemar: habitual composition. This draws attention to the nature of work and technique inherent in the construction of the character Pedro and, by analogy, of male homosexual characters in the historical period in question.

The Possible Construction of a Male Homosexual Character: stereotype and technique

Along the same critical line, it is again Yan Michalski (1973, p. 2) who provides us with clues to proceed with our investigation:

And each of the two characters was crafted with a fully convincing gift of observation and sympathy. Pedro, in his enormous loneliness, in his eagerness to cling to his very last hopes of fulfilling his desires, in his conflict between a concern for petit-bourgeois respectability and the acceptance of his own marginality, comes to resemble the pathetic and utterly human character played by Sérgio Viotti in Queridinho¹³.

It is quite interesting that Michalski, when analysing the actorial performance of Montemar, referred to the performance of another Brazilian actor, Sérgio Viotti, which suggests that maybe there was a network of actorial work which was being developed, albeit in a non-systematised way, around the representation of male homosexual characters, leading us to believe that it was not merely the particular talent of a certain actor - be it Viotti or Montemar. It is also worth noting that Michalski (1967, p. 2, our italics) had already effectively used the adjective pathetic to characterise Viotti’s performance of his character: “[...] reconciling with great subtlety the pathetic and comic aspects of the character, Sérgio Viotti offers us a performance of rare depth and top international level”.

The second aspect to be highlighted is the six-year gap between one work and another, which also implies a certain attentive observation of the work of actors playing homosexual characters and the prolonged reworking of their performances.

Michalski refers to a show with a character similar to Greta Garbo’s, which allied dramatic density to episodic moments of humour, and the explicit comparison in his criticism allows us to establish a possible habitual composition of the male homosexual character and, therefore, in effect a work constituted by a certain group of actors who were specialised in the production of that character, instead of professionals who, by innate individual talent or by their sexual orientation, even if not publicly explicit, produce characters in an off-hand and careless manner, to please the public in general, at the expense of a stereotype of the male homosexual, which supposedly does not contribute to the representation of this slice of the population: on the contrary, it reinforces a simplifying view of them.

The article in the newspaper O Globo entitled ‘Greta Garbo’, agora na Cinelândia: a guinada de Nestor de Montemar (Greta..., 1973) states that Montemar hesitated before accepting the invitation to play the role of Pedro because he had, shortly before, played Princess Grace in the show O bordel da salvação: “[...] I thought that playing two homosexuals in a row would be a bit risky [...]” (Greta..., 1973, p. 4). According to the article, it was Leo Jusi who convinced him to accept the role and do something completely different. Montemar concludes that in Greta Garbo... the character comes to life, and the actor is no longer playing Nestor onstage but Pedro.

Suddenly, I began to transport myself entirely into the character. The play had already opened when I realised that I wasn’t playing Nestor. Onstage I was Greta Garbo. I am very histrionic, I portray things very much for myself, in my own way. But this time it was no longer me (Greta..., 1973, p. 4).

The author, who did not sign the article, is keen to emphasise the change or, as he points out in the title, the shift in Nestor Montemar’s career. In the words of the actor: “[...] I had been doing this kind of thing [criticising the revues], based on folklore. Now, I’ve decided to work seriously” (Greta..., 1973, p. 4). Montemar, therefore, corroborates the review published months earlier, in which Michalski (1973, p. 2) states that the actor swapped “[...] his habitual composition of an exhibitionist homosexual, in the tone of revue theatre, for a heartfelt interpretation of a tormented human being”. In a way, the actor assumes in two points the discourse of consensus: the revue theatre is not serious work, and his onstage work is reduced to playing himself¹⁴. But along with this, the actor reaffirms the idea that in this performance his actorial work is transformed: there is the construction of a character that distinguishes himself from the person he is.

However, in 1971 we can find a critique that already points to a differentiation in relation to this past. It is Michalski himself (1971d, p. 02, author’s italics) who comments and analyses the actorial work of Nestor Montemar:

The great surprise of Tem Piranha na Lagoa is the participation of Nestor Montemar, whose performance carries, at all times, a stupendous debauched malice and a quality of critical detachment that far transcend the limitations of the composition of this conventional type that is the bicha (fag) from Brazilian rebolado revue theatre. In all the scenes that feature Nestor Montemar, the vibration of the spectacle goes up several notches.

It was a revue show, performed in early 1971, at the Circo-teatro New Catacumba, in the Lagoa neighbourhood, Rio de Janeiro. Michalski (1971d, p. 2) highlights that “[...] at all times [Montemar maintains] a quality of critical detachment [...]” and indeed points to the existence of what he calls a conventional type, “[...] a bicha de teatro rebolado” (Brazilian revue theatre fag) (Michalski, 1971d, p. 2). Although the critic praises the actor for not limiting himself to the conventions related to this type, it is important to remember that the debauched malice is still present, and although we are in the southern zone of the city, and therefore in an economically well-placed area, it is still a revue presented in a circus-theatre, presumably demanding from its cast the specific skills of those who need to perform in a certain space with gestures, voice and performance suited to the situation. The ambiguity of the show’s title seems to refer precisely to the idea of a reworking of the revue theatre’s own repertoire in a new configuration. The claim that the presence of Montemar makes “[...] the vibration of the spectacle [go up] several degrees [...]” (Michalski, 1971d, p. 2) leads us to once again believe that the aforementioned actor, over the years, had been developing technical skills that allowed him to play the bicha louca character in an original style without excluding at all from his composition aspects of the rebolado (Brazilian revue theatre’s) bicha. This composition is accomplished in a tension of forces: the techniques of a theatre that wants to be popular, the need to bring visibility to a social group considered a minority and the social reinforcement of stereotypes about the male homosexual.

The Construction of Male Homosexual Characters: a possible network

In an article published in the periodical O eixo e a roda, we pointed out the presence of some LGBT characters on the stages of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in the 1960s and early 1970s, demonstrating not only the need for research on the issue from a historical perspective, but also a more pronounced presence of homosexual characters on Brazilian stages from the end of the 1960s onwards. It is not without annoyance that Magaldi (2014, p. 351) observes, in a critique published in 1974, that “[...] [the] only concern and the sole problem of the country is homosexuality”¹⁵. The Minas Gerais critic continues: “The Brazilian taste for the theme of homosexuality goes back a long way, if we recall that there is no revue without the figure of the man full of quirks and fancies, whom the others make fun of” (Magaldi, 2014, p. 352).

Thus, it can be said that when Nestor Montemar appears onstage playing the character Pedro, in Greta Garbo..., he is supported by a network that had started to be formed a little before and became more visible from 1967 onwards, the year in which, to limit ourselves only to male homosexuality and to certain remarkable shows, the following were staged in São Paulo: Navalha na carne, by Plínio Marcos, in which Veludo was played by Edgar Gurgel Aranha¹⁶, and O rei da vela, by Oswald de Andrade, produced by Grupo Oficina theatre company; and in Rio de Janeiro, with the aforementioned Queridinho.

Without claiming to be a comprehensive treatment, we now draw attention to certain points of this possible network. One of the first that merits mention is the actor Emiliano Queiroz¹⁷. As per Anúncio (1971) published in Jornal do Brasil, the actor was part of the cast of Tem piranha na Lagoa, a hit show with Nestor Montemar, which played at the Coliseu da Barra. Soon after, in 1971, Queiroz also participated alongside Montemar in As garotas da banda¹⁸. Although it is not possible, to date, to determine the characters played by Emiliano Queiroz, it is essential to note that, in 1970, the actor had already appeared on Brazilian screens in the role of Veludo¹⁹ and, if we take a leap into the future, he appeared as the character Geni/Genival in 1978, when Opera do Malandro, by Chico Buarque, premiered²⁰.

Another actor who, in the same period, portrayed homosexual male characters is Ítalo Rossi. In 1972, for example, he appeared with Dina Sfat in the play Doroteia vai à guerra, a play by the Minas Gerais writer Carlos Alberto Ratton, originally composed for two actors (cf. Campos, 1972). Rossi plays the role of the mother, and Sfat, the daughter. Michalski (1972, p. 10) comments on the performance: “Ítalo Rossi struggles a little to find the tone, but gradually finds the monstrosity of his Doroteia, which from time to time is nevertheless diluted in a few excesses of gaudiness”. Again, the Polish critic uses the expression small excesses to characterise the performance of an actor deemed talented, but who invariably appeals to small excesses of cheap laughs²¹. Even though he is not evidently a male homosexual character, the critique necessarily refers us to this character. In 1973, in São Paulo, Ítalo Rossi played a role called androgynous by some critics, but considered more openly homosexual by others. This time we had a male character who dressed as a woman. The reviews were generally quite unfavourable. During the show’s run in Rio de Janeiro, Aldomar Conrado (1974, p. 16), for example, states that: “Ítalo Rossi appears once again as himself. Endowed with an enviable comic timing, Ítalo, has for some years now insisted on appearing in shows dressed as himself: creation of a character, for him, seems to be either something from another time, or an alien necessity”. If we associate this criticism to the article published in Caderno B of Jornal do Brasil, by Míriam Alencar (1974), we can perhaps define Rossi’s character a little better. It concerns a cover article in Caderno B of JB, in which there are three large photos of Ítalo Rossi dressed in female clothes and accessories: a light-coloured dress, high heels, necklaces, and make-up. In one of the photos, he appears lying on the floor, face down, with one leg bent; in a second photo, we see only his face in an expression of joy, laughing; finally, in the third photo, he appears in a full-body shot, standing, posing in a manner similar to the variety theatre starlets. Below this last photo, there is the following caption: “In Falemos sem calças, Ítalo Rossi says he is rebooting his artistic life. Freer and without prejudice, through the text by Guillermo Gentile, the limits of the relationship between parents and children are discussed” (Alencar, 1974, p. 1). The expression freer and without prejudice below the photos, in which he appears dressed in women’s clothes, seems to be self-explanatory.

Our final example is of Raul Cortez²², who surely deserves a broader reflection than the one we can give here. Cortez was part of the cast that, also under the direction of Léo Jusi, staged Greta Garbo... in the city of São Paulo, in 1974, and then toured to several Brazilian cities, parallel to the run of Greta Garbo... with Montemar as the protagonist. Raul Cortez had already played a homosexual role in Os rapazes da banda, Mart Crowley’s 1968 text originally entitled ‘The Boys in the Band’, which may be considered an icon of male homosexual culture. The Brazilian production premiered in São Paulo, and Raul Cortez joined the cast for the Rio de Janeiro run, which began in April 1971. It is important to highlight that this text approaches male homosexuality in a very original way for the time. Michalski (1971c, p. 2) in one of his columns quotes the critic Rex Reed: “[...] [the play’s characters] [do] not commit suicide, nor do they want to marry, or spend the rest of their lives tortured by conscience”. Michalski also states that the play began rehearsals at the Ipanema Theatre in 1969, but was banned by the censorship authorities; the critic adds that it was the actor and producer John Herbert who, in 1970, managed to reverse the decision and stage the play in São Paulo. The premiere took place most probably in October 1970²³. Michalski (1971c) regrets the fact that Walmor Chagas could not participate in the Rio de Janeiro season. Chagas was replaced by Raul Cortez, who, according to Michalski (1971c, p. 2), is an “[...] artist of undeniable talent”. Cortez plays the role of Michael, evaluated by the critic as “[...] one of the most difficult roles in the play” (Michalski, 1971c, p. 2). Michalski (1971c) also quotes the critic Walter Kerr, associating pain and comicality, traits that we have already seen identified by Michalski himself when analysing Greta Garbo...

They [the boys] deal with pain through piercing, ostentatious, savage laughter. How can they consider themselves tragic figures, when their own agonies seem so trivial to them? But - and this is the context of a very good and very funny play - trivial agonies, absurd agonies, agonies that cannot be conceived as such, but perpetually dealt with as jokes, can be the most forceful²⁴ (Michalski, 1971c, p. 2).

Hence, both the play and the cast’s performance are analysed from this oscillation between comicality and melodrama, between anguish and amusement. Michalski (1971a, p. 2) states: “[...] [i]n the first act, the show descends into folklore, cheap caricature, flirting with the less demanding audience”. A week later, in a new review of the show, Michalski (1971b) again discusses the American stage production, wondering if the flaws of the show in Rio de Janeiro are due to the text, the director or the cast and cautiously praises two actors, Paulo César Pereio and Raul Cortez. Regarding the latter, he claims that:

[...] through an extremely rich play of looks, physiognomic expressions, gestures, pauses and changes of pace, he achieves a suitably multifaceted Michael and, at the same time, is consistent in his suffering ambivalence. It’s a pity that his final scene takes away slightly from his work in its unnecessarily melodramatic tone (Michalski, 1971b, p. 2).

He goes to comment on the other actor:

Benedito Corsi, incidentally hampered by a ridiculous costume, is responsible for a large part of the sullenness of the play’s tone, although within the chanchada line adopted at the wrong time [,] his presence has undeniable comic communicability (Michalski, 1971b, p. 2).

Henrique Oscar (1971b, p. 20), in his critique, praises Cortez’s “extraordinary” work, and does not seem to deviate from the parameters used by Yan Michalski, also pinpointing as a flaw the comic exaggeration of the first act and, as a consequence, the unexpected passage to a climate of seriousness in the second act, making it long and heavy. On analyzing the text, he states:

Effectively, if in the first part, at least as it is represented here, the work resembles a mockery of more or less stereotyped figures, in the second part there is an about-face; from the little quips, the jokes, and the lampooning of the types, it moves on to a kind of ‘moment of truth’ in which the characters dramatically expose their problems and they themselves are shown as much more than simply risible beings, but people whose existence, apparently light-hearted, amusing and inconsequential, is in reality rather bitter. Just look at the last sentence of the play according to which the happy homosexual is already born dead [...] (Oscar, 1971b, p. 20).

This last sentence of the show seems somewhat at odds with Reed’s suggested description of the characters - [...] [the play’s characters] [do] not commit suicide, nor do they want to marry, or spend the rest of their lives tortured by conscience” (Oscar, 1971b, p. 20) -, but overall it presents the text and the show as alternating between comic exaggeration and drama²⁵.

Final Considerations: excess and solidarity²⁶

In a piece by Flávio Marinho (1976, p. 37) on Nestor Montemar, there is a comment on his association with homosexual or effeminate characters:

In the revue ‘Tem piranha na lagoa’, Montemar’s most successful number was when he appeared as Carmen Miranda; in ‘Greta Garbo’, he played a homosexual; in ‘Antílope’, he appeared as a travesti; in ‘Pecado capital’, he played an effeminate dressmaker; Nestor confessed that he feared being marked by this type of composition.

In the same article, Montemar claimed that he refused roles that referred to male homosexuality both in cinema and in theatre. He also said that he went to the house of a General - the father of a friend - to show that he was the same actor who appeared in Pecado Capital and O Casarão. In this sense, what the actor wanted to show the spectator, the reader and the General was that his homosexual character was the result of his daily work - it was a composition. Montemar also mentions having received an invitation to put on a play by a Gaúcha author and makes a point of insisting: “The character’s name is Nanico and it has nothing to do with homosexuality” (Marinho, 1976c p. 37). In closing, he said that he had talked to Chico Buarque to see if the playwright might write a play for him, but that he maintained his refusal to play female characters or male homosexuals.

A little later, in an article entitled Nestor Montemar, published on 06 March, 1980, in the newspaper A Gazeta, from Vitória (ES), Montemar briefly reflects on his success as an actor playing homosexual characters: “I am a person without prejudice. I have played homosexuals four times, assuming the role and playing it to the end. And this goes before the public, hence the success [...]” (Nestor, 1980, n.p.); and, further on, he says: “[...] one must embrace homosexuality onstage, and not hide behind the character, saying, ‘I am not like that, it’s my character who is’. “That creates distance and doesn’t make the audience react”²⁷ (Nestor, 1980, n.p.).

Thus, Montemar, even if a posteriori, simultaneously recognises the need to strengthen the view that his portrayal of male homosexual characters is the result of an artistic composition (work and technique) and the importance of homosexual visibility: to be onstage without concealing his own homosexuality, with no need to use the mask of a homosexual character.

This routine work was carried out along a line of tension that strengthened the ties of solidarity in a period of the Brazilian government’s authoritarianism, contributed to the visibility of a group that would later be called a minority, enabled a reading of the character as a stereotype and created in the public space an environment of resistance to the moralism of the era. Therefore, the composition of the bicha louca allows us to identify the creation of a possible character constituted in an actorial network by artists such as Nestor Montemar, Raul Cortez, Emiliano Queiroz and Ítalo Rossi. It is, however, fundamental to understand that in the early 1970s an aesthetic of excess had already appeared as an integral part of this character’s constitution. This excess can be perceived in the aspects of humour as well as the melodramatic, both present in popular comicality. Everything indicates that, up to this moment of research, the small excesses of humour and melodrama, often found in one and the same character, did not compromise the quality of the actors’ performance, even if they were not advisable. This excess seems to be opposed to the possibility of a restrained, rational and controlled performance, perhaps inspired in the work of Stanislavski or in that of Denis Diderot²⁸.

With the gradual conquest of a measure of visibility for the LGBT population, within what can be achieved in a society quite averse to sexual diversity, the excesses in the performance of male homosexual characters - or of female characters, when played by male actors - seem to progressively move from a more conventional theatre to the field of Drag Queen performances. This shift occurs through a reinforcement of a realistic aesthetic in the theatrical and television sphere: even social movements and performance groups advocating for LGBTs seem to demand the onstage presence of a diversity of homosexual men without confining them to the supposedly stereotypical bicha louca, while the aesthetics of excess seems to migrate to performances with no commitment to an allegedly realistic dramaturgy, intensifying its relations with revue shows and the promotion of starlets and megastars. The excesses in the performances of actors such as Montemar seem to evolve towards the exaggerations of a camp aesthetic, simultaneously accentuating a specialized performative language and a space marked out for a cultural aesthetic of excesses, a composition that articulates a repertoire of popular comicality in Brazil, in which various elements of a melodramatic culture participate, a discussion that will be expanded upon on another occasion.

As such, we hope to have contributed to demonstrating how the writing of Brazilian theatre history still requires long and exhaustive studies using documental sources. Our investigations into the work of actors during the civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985) enabled us to perceive the relations that these artists maintained among themselves, building a network that made it possible to simultaneously create a male homosexual character, even if in a stereotypical way under the designation of bicha louca, resist censorship, and in some way promote the visibility of male homosexuals in a historical moment in which, in a very incipient way, the first groups fighting for the rights of the LGBT population were organised.

Notes

• 1
  It is important to mention here the dossier on Performance and Transgender, published by the journal Estudos da presença, in 2020. The dossier is composed of five articles that discuss: the work of Canadian performer Nina Arsenault; the French-Spanish spectacle TRANS (més enllà), Miss Gay Internacional by Theatron in Colombia, the work of Argentinean artist Suzi Shock and the Portuguese performances Tetagrafias and Tran(S)arau. It is also worth mentioning Colling’s (2018) article on artivism and sexual dissidences in contemporary Brazil.
• 2
  At the beginning of this period the acronym LGBT was not used, and the issues of male homosexuality and transvestility were the most visible in the field of sexual diversity. The common term at that time was homosexuality.
• 3
  It is worth remembering that a group of graduates from the Journalism course at the Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, in an immediate reaction to what had happened, chose Denner as patron of their class, provoking protests in the state Legislative Assembly (cf. Rodrigues, 2014; Denner..., 1972).
• 4
  The Chrysóstomo Case, as it became known, is discussed in a text by Rodrigues (2014). Antônio Chrysóstomo died a few months after his release. In 1983, the publisher Codecri released a book authored by Chrysóstomo (1983). With a preface by Herbert Daniel, the book brings together some pieces from the trial and a play written by the journalist during his time in jail, entitled Olho no olho.
• 5
  It is essential to remember that, unlike many other countries, in Brazil there was no law expressly prohibiting homosexuality.
• 6
  Rita Rodrigues (2014) comments on a statement by Cláudia Celeste in which the artist says there was a ban on the presence of travestis on stages in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Here, the meaning of the term travesti is still quite fluid, and may mean a man who dresses in women’s clothes, in the sense of cross-dressing, or someone who was initially designated as male gender and who starts to designate himself as female gender.
• 7
  Misto quente - which appears listed as a show - premiered on July 22, 1972, at Teatro Princesa Isabel, in Rio de Janeiro, and featured Agildo Ribeiro, Valéria and Pedrinho Mattar in the cast, and was directed by Augusto César Vanucci. Before its premiere, the show had problems with censorship. According to a report published in Jornal do Brasil, “The current censorship policy of gradually reducing the participation of cross-dressers on television and in the theatre is the only explanation given by the producers of the play Misto Quente for the cuts made by the Censorship Service to 50% of the text, forcing a postponement of the premiere that was to take place today” (Censura..., 1972, p.27), which reiterates the claims of Green and Rodrigues.
• 8
  Also listed as a show, it premiered in October 1973, under the direction of Agildo Ribeiro. Advertisements for its publicity began shortly before its premiere and included phrases such as Mas eu não sou nem mulher/ nem homem. Sou um enigma/ Por via das dúvidas/me chamem Rogéria; Ele ou ela. Você é quem escolhe/ Por via das dúvidas/ Vá ao Princesa Isabel a partir do dia 25/ Me chamem Rogéria. (But I am neither woman/ nor man. I’m an enigma/ just in case/ call me Rogéria; Him or her. You choose/ Just in case/ Go to Princesa Isabel on the 25th/ Call me Rogéria) The full title sometimes appeared as Por via das dúvidas ou (Por dúvida das vias). In certain ads, emphasis is given to the fact that Rogéria was brought from Paris to Rio de Janeiro.
• 9
  For further information, see Morando (2014).
• 10
  For further information, see Ocanha (2014). In his text, he demonstrates the strong relationship between the Vagrancy Law and the arrests of LGBTs in the city of São Paulo, particularly affecting the black population and the poorest segment in economic terms. He also shows that, in 1982, it is the civil police investigators themselves who call for their removal from the patrols that persecute prostitutes and travestis. As can be seen, the complexity of the issue is flagrant. Regarding the persecution of the lesbian population, see Fernandes (2014), who discusses the lesbian movement, the importance of figures like Cassandra Rios and the problems with censorship and the violence of police patrols against the lesbian population.
• 11
  We would like to refer here to a text of our authorship, published in the Annals of the X Congress of Abrace (Rocha Junior, 2018).
• 12
  It is important to note that in the 1973 reviews only the character Pedro is designated on the basis of his sexual orientation. Renato is described, in general, as a young country boy, with some variations. Our work, therefore, focuses on Nestor Montemar’s performance. However, we would like to remark on the silence regarding the homosexuality of Renato’s character.
• 13
  The piece Queridinho [Staircase, in English], a text by Charles Dyer, was presented in Teatro Princesa Isabel in Rio de Janeiro, at the end of June 1967.
• 14
  By highlighting Montemar’s statements, we are not accepting them in a naive way, since his assertions may point to both a discursive strategy - of saying what critics want to hear - and a truthful confession of his creative process. In a future publication, we will discuss the meaning of the bicha louca character being understood as a character-type and its relation to popular theatre in Brazil. Unfortunately, there is no room for such a discussion within the dimensions of this article.
• 15
  Cf. Rocha Junior (2017). In 1967, for example, there were the presentations of Queridinho, Navalha na carne and Álbum de família. Toda nudez será castigada was premiered in 1965, and Beijo no asfalto in 1961.
• 16
  “A surprising composition is that of Edgar Gurgel Aranha as the homosexual Veludo: a slight smirk of debauchery in the mouth, the voice at the exact limit that prevents caricature, the shoulder movements revealing femininity” (Magaldi, 2014, p. 45).
• 17
  Sometimes spelt Emiliano Queirós.
• 18
  The title of the show, which translates as The Girls in the Band, allows us to assume that it is a parody of the play, The Boys in the Band, by Mart Crowley, premiered in Brazil under the title Os rapazes da banda in October 1970, in São Paulo.
• 19
  The film Navalha na carne was directed by Braz Chediak and the cast included Jece Valadão, Glauce Rocha and Emiliano Queiroz. It premiered in March 1970. On Queiroz’s performance, cf. Azeredo (1970, p. 7): “If we were obliged to highlight the best [of the cast], it would be the surprising work of Emiliano Queiroz”.
• 20
  Curiously, in the references to the performances of Montemar in Tem piranha na lagoa, of Edgar Aranha in the play Navalha na carne and of Queiroz in the film Navalha na carne, the expression of surprise always appears.
• 21
  In his review, Henrique Oscar (1972, p. 3) does not highlight the small excesses identified by Michalski: “In my opinion, Italo Rossi adopted an excellent solution for Doroteia. At no time does he compose a ridiculous ‘travesti’, like those of vaudeville theatre in which men effectively want to look like women. As in a play by Brecht, Ítalo Rossi performs as an author who tries to show what the behaviour of a woman would be in that situation, which enhances the critical sense of his performance. [...] But, as Ítalo Rossi, in no moment does he resort to cheap caricature, thus avoiding comical bad taste”.
• 22
  The actor’s name sometimes appears in newspapers in the form of Raul Cortês.
• 23
  The show, after managing to open in São Paulo, faced Censorship problems before opening in Rio de Janeiro (cf. Michalski, 1971a, and the editorial in Jornal do Brasil: Censura Confusa (1971). Then, when the play was about to move to the Teatro da Lagoa, it again ran into problems with the Censor. In an unsigned article (Diretor..., 1971), there is a long column commenting on the censorship of the play, which was not allowed to be performed at the time in Rio de Janeiro. Although advertised on a few occasions, it was only released and re-staged on 07 July.
• 24
  References to both Rex Reed and Walter Kerr also appear in reviews by Henrique Oscar (1971a; 1971b), published in Diário de Notícias. Such a coincidence leads us to suppose that they appeared in the press releases for the show and/or in its programme.
• 25
  This a retranslation of the Portuguese version. The text published in English does not contain this closing line (cf. Crowley, 2003).
• 26
  In this article we do not highlight the ground-breaking work of the Dzi Croquetes group, since the characters analysed here are constructed within more or less previously established parameters, which could hardly be applied to the work of the aforementioned group.
• 27
  This article is in Funarte’s dossier archive. Information about date, place and periodical are hand-written and are not in the article. In the text, the name of Maria Lúcia appears as the author without her surname. The article deals with the presentation of the show Mas, quem não é?, written by Chico Anísio and directed by Paulo Afonso Grisolli, staged at Teatro Carlos Gomes, in Vitória (ES). Besides Montemar, the cast included Milton Carneiro, Luiz Cláudio and Eduardo Nogueira.
• 28
  “In fact, when censors ordered certain characters to be cut from a Globo TV soap opera in 1975, their first demand was for the producers to ‘attenuate the effeminate gestures of the dressmaker Roger’” (document from the director of the Divisão de Censura de Diversões Públicas (Public Entertainment Censorship Division - DCDP) addressed to Rede Globo, dated 24 November 1975; cf. Cowan, 2014, p. 37). Roger was the part played by Nestor de Montemar. The verb attenuate gives us an idea of the over-the-top gestures employed by Montemar, already referred to on more than one occasion.

References

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Edited by

Editor-in-charge: Celina Nunes de Alcântara

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 June 2021
• Date of issue
  2021

History

• Received
  23 July 2020
• Accepted
  24 Mar 2021