A comical politics of not-knowing in contemporary theatre: The power of theatrical foolishness

• Grant number: 21/13778-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: April 01, 2022
• End date: December 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Theatre
• Principal Investigator: Antônio Carlos de Araújo Silva
• Grantee: Artur Sartori Kon
• Host Institution: Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims at investigating five recent theatrical works, by companies from different parts of the world, in which we find a certain common strategy: the use of a silly comicity, even when the most urgent issues of the present are discussed, in order to explain the potency of a non- knowing about politics, or even an aesthetic politics of not-knowing. Whether facing the rise of a certain extreme right in Brazil in recent years (Pornoteobrasil, by Tablado de Arruar) or an anatomy of violence in Colombia's historical formation (Los incontados, by Mapa Teatro), or by discussing the absolute pervasiveness of the logic of the show (Real Magic, by British group Forced Entertainment) or real estate speculation in contemporary Berlin (Oratorio, by She She Pop), or even exposing relationships of human and nature exploration that have accompanied the history of Latin America since colonization (Amazonia, by Portuguese group Mala Voadora), these pieces invest on a kind of laughter linked not to intellectual superiority, wit or fine irony, but to the tradition of fools, to the most base nonsense, ignorance, ineptitude and impotence. It is in this unexpected place, we believe, that a renewed political theater can be found, capable of facing up to our time.