The tragedy revisited: a new mî(me)se en cène in the Nelson Rodrigues’s theatre

Abstract

The work of Nelson Rodrigues focuses on a few central themes, such as love and death, sex and betrayal, violence and transgression, which, worn in the European and Brazilian theater, often minimizes its character of originality. However, it is in the form – and not in the content – that the playwright reaches its greatest innovation, bringing to the stage a tragedy which, while rejecting its founder model, runs counter to a tragedy, between the years 1880-1950, with rare exceptions (like Brecht , Hauptmann and Pirandello), still attached to the classical principles of objectivity, reality and verisimilitude, maybe not in the contents, but at least in the formal structuring of contents. Thus, I intend to identify, in Vestido de noiva, how the Nelson Rodrigues’s work moves away from the traditional model of tragedy, introducing a new mîse en cène in the Brazilian theater, finally released from the formal prison that represented, for a long time, the desire of real.