Book, Theater of death, O[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. Old worn benches, a pile of dried out books that crumble into dust, a toilet… On the benches, old people whose looks, then gestures of automatons, only say that they are still breathing with life. A finger rises, two, three follow, then a whole forest… Memories of a past. Old people, and then their doubles, the mannequins of the children they were, images of death, the presence of matter… Who is there? Aren't we, aren't we? Human beings? Mannequins that are more concrete, more real, more alive than them? Powers of fascination in pictures of theatrical invocation! At the same time that his brush acts, paints them, elaborating the scenic reality for the creation of the spectacles, Kantor specifies the situation, argues and explains himself, polemicizes, defending and accusing himself, in a series of testimonies - manifestos, scores of presentations and happenings, interviews, articles - which clarify its procedure and affirm its originality. All these elements and operators of theatricality come together in O Teatro da Morte, which the publisher Perspectiva, in co-edition with Edições SESC SP, now publishes in its Studies collection. Selected and organized by Denis Bablet, the writings of the notable playwright-playwright director gathered here provide the reader with textual access to the essential stages of Tadeusz Kantor's creative activity and evolution.