RICARDO FRAYHA
producer

Nelson Rodrigues was afraid of flying and never set foot outside Brazil. His creation, however, went beyond the country's borders, winning admirers in places far from the suburb of Rio, so obsessively dissected by the playwright. One of these admirers is the German director Frank Castorf, who since 1992 has been responsible for the direction of Berlin's legendary Volksbühne theater. Castorf is already known in Brazil for his stagings Endstation Amerika (by Tennessee Williams) and In the Jungle of Cities 
(by Brecht), presents now in São Paulo a fusion between Black Angel, by Nelson Rodrigues, with excerpts from Heiner Müller's The Mission: Memory of a Revolution, with Brazilian cast and crew. The first scenic reading of a work by Nelson Rodrigues directed by Castorf took place in April 2006, in Berlin, The Deceased had four presentations, with great public success. After probing in Berlin Rodrigues' text with a German cast, the director accepted the challenge of staging Black Angel in São Paulo, with Brazilian actors. Based on some names suggested by the director Antonio Araújo, from Teatro da Vertigem, Castorf created a cast made up of veterans and young actors: the singer Denise Assunção (who as an actress was part of Teatro Oficina), Georgette Fadel (from Companhia São Jorge de Variedades, Roberto Audio (Teatro da Vertigem), Darcio Ribeiro (Teatro dos Narradores), Janaina Leite (Grupo XIX de Teatro) and a choir of young actors and actresses from Cia. Filhos de Olorum (EAD-USP). “What I like about Nelson,” said Castorf, “is his peculiar way of writing tragedies in an equally comical way, revealing intimate aspects of human behavior - it is modern dramaturgy for the decades in which it was produced. Brazilian theater and dramaturgy have little tradition in Germany. The two best known names are Nelson Rodrigues and Plínio Marcos - even Augusto Boal is mentioned more as a pedagogue than as a playwright. I try to promote an exchange between the two theatrical traditions”. The cross-editing of Black Angel, by Nelson Rodrigues, and The Mission, by Heiner Müller, is a practical example of this exchange. First staged in April 1948, two years after it was written, Black Angel faced harsh criticism for its alleged “obscenity” and “disrespect for morals”. If the difficult reception can be attributed in part to the approach of taboo themes, such as incest and disgust and obsessive attraction to sex, its main reason was undoubtedly, as its commentators attest, the thematisation of racism in Brazilian society. The play The Mission: Memory of a Revolution was written by Heiner Müller in 1979 and premiered in 1980 on East Berlin's Volksbühne, under the direction of Müller and Ginka Tscholakowa. The play scenically evokes a revolt plan by slaves in Jamaica, in the years following the French Revolution, based on the narrative The Light on the Gallows (1961), by Anna Seghers.

​

​

FRANK CASTORF

​

Frank Castorf was born in East-Berlin on 17 July 1951. He studied Theatre Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and worked initially as a dramaturg at Theater Senftenberg and later as a director at the Brandenburg Theater. From 1981 until a politically motivated summary dismissal in 1985, he was head of drama at Theater Anklam. During the following years, he staged plays by García Lorca, Goethe, Shakespeare, Lessing, Lenz, Schiller, Ibsen, Brecht and several texts by Heiner Müller at various city theatres in the GDR (Halle, Gera, Karl-Marx-Stadt) and from 1988 on also in the FRG and Switzerland. From 1990–1992, he was director-in-residence at Deutsches Theater Berlin. With the 1992/93 season, Frank Castorf took up his post as Artistic Director of the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in Berlin, where his production Räuber von Schiller had already set new standards for strong-willed contemporary theatre in 1990. Under his directorship and with Bert Neumann (1960–2015) as chief set designer, the Volksbühne became an institution of world-wide renown, creating a lasting influence on German-language theatre and touring all the world’s continents with celebrated guest performances. Frank Castorf also worked as a guest director at other theatres and opera houses in cities like Basel, Hamburg, Munich, Stockholm, Vienna, Zurich, Copenhagen, São Paulo, Stuttgart and Paris. Over a period of 25 years, he created more than 100 productions and turned some of them into films, among them Dostoyevsky’s Dämonen (Demons) and Der Idiot (The Idiot). His work oscillates within the tension between Eastern and Western thought, which is evident in his investigation of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill, to whom he dedicated numerous productions. He draws on a large part of European literature from the past 2500 years as material and refers not only to the classic canon, but also to its outliers. In 2013, the anniversary of Richard Wagner’s 200th birthday, he directed a controversial and celebrated production of Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). Since the end of his tenure as Artistic Director at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in August 2017, Frank Castorf has been working as a freelance director, or, as he himself puts it “as a vagabond and arsonist”. Varying members of his old Volksbühnen-company travel with him. He has premiered three large-scale productions since then, at Schauspielhaus Zürich, Berliner Ensemble and Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg. His work as a theatre and stage director has received many awards. They include the Fritz-Kortner-Award, the Theatre Award Berlin of Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung, the NESTROY-Award, the Award of the International Theatre Institute, the City of Mannheim’s Schiller-Award, the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin, the Friedrich-Luft-Award, the Golden Laurel Wreath Award of the International Theater Festival MESS, the German Theatre Award DER FAUST as well as the Großer Kunstpreis Berlin (2016). Frank Castorf is a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts, the German Academy of Performing Arts and a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. 

​

​

BLACK ANGEL by Nelson Rodrigues remembering a revolution: THE MISSION by Heiner Müller

Adaptation and direction: Frank Castorf | With: Denise Assunção, Roberto Áudio, Darcio de Oliveira, Janaina Leite, Georgette Fadel, Irina Kastrinidis, Gal Quaresma, Joyce Barbosa, Lucélia Sérgio, Mawusi Tulani, Sidney Santiago, Tatiana Ribeiro, Tayrone Porto | Set and costume design: Thiago Bortolozzo, Arianne Vitale Cardoso, Renato Rebouças | Dramaturg: Matthias Pees | Artistic consultants: Antonio Araújo (Cast), Bert Neumann (Set and costumes) | Assistan directors: Bernadeth Alves, Annette Ramershoven | Translation: George Sperber (rehearsals), Christine Röhrig (The Mission by Heiner Müller | Soundtrack: André Lucena, Edson Junior | Virginia's song: Denise Assunção | Video: Marília Halla | Camera: Dario José, Walter Marinho | Light: Irene Selka, Ivan Andreade | Sound: André Lucena, Cassandra Mello (Boom) | 
Technical direction and constructions: Julio Cesarini | Technicians: Ednomar Mendonça, Wiliam Torres, Nelson Fracola Filho, Rodrigo Veronese, Juliano Fabricio de Freitas | Wardrobe assistant: Clarissa Mastro

Production: prod.art.br | Production director: Ricardo Muniz Fernandes | Administration: Veridiana Gomes Fernandes | Trainee: Ricardo Frayha 

Realisation: Goethe-Institut São Paulo, Sesc São Paulo | Support: Kulturstiftung des Bundes | O project is part of Copa da Cultura Brasil+Deutschland 2006, initiative by the Ministry of Culture (MinC).

Sesc Vila Mariana

São Paulo, SP, Brazil

01 to 10/12/2006