Imagining the nation at the theatre

Creation, writing up and staging of BR3, by Teatro da Vertigem and Bernardo Carvalho

Abstract

Romantic and modernist Brazilian literature tried to tackle the issue of our nationality as a means of self-recognition, a search for national identity. With the rise of post-modernism and especially of cultural studies, the question of national identity and of the representation of the nation is back again; historians, social scientists and literary and visual arts critics have been discussing the theme and we, therefore, see analysis of novels, short stories, poems, paintings, installations, movies and TV series, among others, which deal with how these media try to represent the nation – or if it is still possible to speak in a totalizing way about narratives of the nation and of national identity. Nonetheless, this matter does not seem so compelling in theatre studies. Although there are plays which attempt to narrate a space and its society, whether it be the nation or the city – the latter sometimes representative of an idea of nation -, the debate on what this idea of nation and national identity are is, in theatre studies, limited. Thus, this article aims at analyzing how the nation was imagined and the understanding of national identity in the play BR3, signed by Bernardo Carvalho and staged by the company Teatro da Vertigem.