In the Jungle of the "Antropófagos"

In the Jungle of the "Antrop6fagos" LORENA BALENSIFER ELLIS Nosotros comemos a Brecht [...]10 deg/wimos antropo!agicamente y 10 devolvemos en otra forma. [We eat Brecht [...] swallow him cannibalistically, and reproduce him in another form.] .-caca RossetI When dealing with the reception of literature outside its land of origin, it is natural to reflect on how the text is read and understood by an audience of a different culture, living in a different time zone, with a different climate, and speaking a language different from that of the author. What changes in this transfer of literature between cultures? How is the reader affected when exposed to a text from an alien culture? What role does the previous experience of the reader play in his understanding and interpreting of the text? There are many questions. and even more answers. While what follows will inevitably touch upon such questions, I shall for the most part leave the discussion of reception theory to the experts in the field, concentrating rather on a practical summary of Bertolt Brecht's reception in the Brazilian theatre, with special attention to indigenous theories of anthropophagy - what might be called cultural cannibalism. In contrast to the traditional reception theories, which deal with the phenomenon of the relationship between text and reader, in the context of theatre it is necessary to use a different approach, applying a system of reasoning distinct from that used with exclusively literary texts. According to Kathrin Sartigen , in the field of theatre there are two phases to the receptive process: first the directors and the actors read and interpret the text, and then the spectators decipher this interpretation.' Accordingly, the audience is faced with a play that is no longer the original text, but an interpretation. Regarding foreign productions , one must also remember that the original text undergoes a translation from one language to another - from Gennan into Portuguese in the case Modern Drama, 42 (1999) 269 270 LORENA BALENSIFER ELLIS of Brecht in Brazil - thus creating a third phase. The translation occurs before the directors and actors read the text, and it is dependent on the particular translator's understanding and interpretation of the play. During these various phases there is always the risk of misinterpretation, which can lead to distortions of the original text. This has in fact often been the case with Brecht's plays; throughout the 1950s, for example, many were translated from French translations and so were two steps away from the original. Fortunately, this is no longer the case, because Fernando Peixoto, the editor of the twelve-volume Portuguese-language edition of Brecht's plays, made sure that the translators worked directly from original texts; moreover, Peixoto's co-editor was Wolfgang Bader, a native German and the editor of Brecht no Brasil.3 In spite of such early distortions, Brecht's reception in Brazil was tremendous , and so powerful that during the 1960s, he was the country's most frequently staged foreign author. Taking into account that over forty percent of the Brecht plays staged in the last few decades have been presented outside the cultural centres of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, he can be regarded as a national phenomenon. Among authors from Gennan-speaking countries Brecht is certainly the front runner, with over eight times as many stagings in Brazil as his next most popular countryman, Georg Buchner. Heiner Muller, Friedrich Durrenmatt, and Frank Wedekind follow in popularity' Brecht's influence on Brazilian theatre was not, however, limited to the simple production of plays: he inspired Brazilian playwrights, directors, and actors to adapt his theories, subject matter, and stage methods, which resulted in what might be called a creative-productive reception. That elements of Brechtian theory have been widely adapted in Brazilian plays is evidence of Brecht's impact, and is also a reason for the enormous extent of Brecht's reception in Brazil. One of the factors underlying such success is that the texts of the German author were not always appropriated in a dogmatic, "loyal" manner. On one hand, this is the consequence of the various phases in the receptive process already mentioned - the options and decisions of the translators, as...