VICTOR RUI DORES: "Bravo!"

Translated by Katharine F. Baker

DINIZ BORGES: "(More than) a Couple Words"

   After writing and staging Enquanto a roupa seca [While the Clothes Dry] in 2010, Álamo Oliveira has resumed his theatrical pursuits, adapting his 1999 novel Já não gosto de chocolates [I No Longer Like Chocolates] for Angra do Heroísmo’s Alpendre Theater Group, of which he is truly the father.

   I went to see – and I unconditionally liked – this play, which reassures us that theater is countervailing, enduring, exorcising, denouncing of illusory truths and renouncing the masks of daily alienation. It’s a play that tells us of the loves and hatreds of those who, after immigrating to America, feel lonely, exiled, and stateless. The minimalist scenery functions effectively. The actors move about the stage exchanging intense dialogue and delivering dramatic monologues. Álamo Oliveira employs, with real mastery, discontinuous and tangled narratives through ellipses that rely on retroactive and current memories. Director Valter Peres has adeptly seized the text’s purposes, focusing on effective scenic movement and an effective play of light, resulting in a highly visual and physically beautiful performance.

   And what an amazing performance by the great actor Belarmino Ramo! He plays Joe Sylvia, né José Silva, a Terceiran widower from Serreta who immigrated to the town of Tulare in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Given his extreme isolation, he lives apart from family members, who only visit according to schedule. Dissatisfied, unassimilated and misunderstood, in a succession of flashbacks he revisits his island memories, on the one hand – and, on the other, critically questions his daily American life. Without the ranch that had been his livelihood, and with his family rent asunder, Joe sits perplexed, bewildered by the world; he does not understand his children (naturalized Americans), nor grasp changes in the Azores resulting from the April 25, 1974, Carnation Revolution.

   Two utterly beautiful love stories span the play: Joe Sylvia and Mary’s, in their redemptive, tough love; and John and Danny’s, in their subversive, homosexual love – two stories that will have tragic outcomes, however: Mary succumbs to breast cancer, while John dies of AIDS. Astonishing interpretations come from Frederico Madeira and Hélder Xavier, amazing supporting performances by Mimi Bretão and Carla Soares, and the most positive of nods to the emotive and expressive Filomena Ferreira.

   In this act of courage that is the making of theater nowadays, the rapport between Alpendre and its audience could not possibly have been better. It is a group that continuously and continually renews itself and provides the public service of lifting the veils from our souls.

  The 2016 holiday edition of "Maré Cheia" brings us a text by poet Victor Rui Dores about the recent adaptation for the theater of Álamo Oliveira’s novel Já não gosto de chocolates. It is a holiday gift to all who read and support this arts-and-letters page, the only one of its kind in North American Portuguese-language newspapers. So for starters this introductory note, which today has the dual role of serving as a brief reflection, a hug of friendship to the editors of this newspaper for allotting this space, and having faith in what Fernando Pessoa masterfully called "believing in landscapes that no one wants to see." A literary page does not sell, nor shout loudly within the community. In a society of shocking postmodernism, it’s not even a chic page. But in a somewhat chaotic world where we elect to our highest offices those who despise culture, it is of utmost importance to follow Goethe's sage advice: every day we should read a good poem, listen to a beautiful song, contemplate a beautiful picture and speak some beautiful words. That's why "Maré Cheia" celebrates another year in the service of those who still believe in what the famous American comedian Groucho Marx once said: "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

   And in this festive holiday environment we celebrate the theater. It was in April of this year now ending when we were celebrating in central California the 50th anniversary of the joining of Angra do Heroísmo as a Sister City to Tulare, that I encouraged my old friend Alamo Oliveira to bring his excellent novel Já não gosto de chocolates to the theater, in order to convince Alpendre to take part in the celebration of this anniversary with the staging of it. Incidentally, for those who are familiar with Já não gosto de chocolates [I No Longer Like Chocolates], the great novel about our California communities, you know very well that it would not only be adaptable to the stage, as Álamo has done, but would also make a magnificent film or TV mini-series. For this it would be necessary for Portuguese filmmakers to rethink their country and its writers, but these are bitter thoughts for another litany. What is certain is that the play Já não gosto de chocolates was extremely well

   It’s been 40 years since the Alpendre Theater Group first burst onto the scene. Guerras do Alecrim e da Manjerona [Wars between the Rosemary and the Marjoram] by António José da Silva served as the debut for a project that four decades later is in it for the long haul.

   Forty-year-old theater groups are rare in Portugal. They can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A few days ago we found out that Cornucópia reported it was still around; others of Alpendre’s age are presently struggling to draw their last breaths in order to stay active. It is with great satisfaction that I congratulate Alpendre on its longevity.

   These have been forty years of cultural life, with 98 works brought to the stage by a great number of people, among them actors, producers and directors. This is a feast day for the theater and for Azorean culture.

  I take advantage of this date to honor all those who have built and supported this project. Since

Álamo Oliveira planted the seed in 1976 there have been many who, at personal cost, have given of their energy to make 40 years of uninterrupted activity possible.

   I know what it must have cost because theater requires the fullness of the senses, to total surrender, be it physical, emotional, intellectual or social.

   When life is made in the theater, it becomes its own skin and we feel it is, as Federico García Lorca put it, "poetry that comes from the book to make itself human." That is why Alpendre still remains alive today, precisely because it was the priority for all those who passed through it. To all of them, many thanks.

   In addition to making people laugh and cry, theater is fundamental for a people’s cultural education; it is entertainment but also a form of social and political expression. Alpendre has done this over the years, and will continue to, every time someone takes the stage.

   Contemporary life cannot afford to dispense with theater; to the contrary, it is enough for us to observe the conformity of society, its accommodation, selfishness and passivity in order to realize that we need more theater, not less.

   After eight years as president of this useful public institution, the time has arrived to pass the baton to others. I do it with the joy of knowing that the team who will be leading this project at the start of 2017 will dedicate their full energies on behalf of Alpendre, as I always did.

   To the Alpendre Theater Group and all the theatrical projects in this country, a toast to their determination to continue the cultural nurture of our society.

"Theater cannot disappear because it's the only art where humanity confronts itself."

– Arthur Miller

  Few theater groups in Portugal can boast of marking four decades of life. What is certain, however, is that one of the names that is part of this short list is in the Azores. Alpendre, born and nurtured in Angra do Heroísmo, turned 40 years ago yesterday.

   The amateur theater group’s longevity could prompt you to imagine fabulous founding stories – but no. Writer Álamo Oliveira, who was linked to its creation, is peremptory: "There was nothing poetic about the creation of Alpendre."

   The truth is that Alpendre, one of the most important groups in the Azores, arose out of a need: it was necessary to find work for an elementary school Drama teacher, Leonardo Melo, so his friends joined together to bring to the stage Guerras do Alecrim e da Manjerona [Wars between the Rosemary and the Marjoram] by António José da Silva. The play, which premiered on December 27, 1976, was performed at the Teatro Angrense three times, until the end of that year. The house was always full, Álamo Oliveira recalls.

   "The work wound up running successfully, despite all sorts of setbacks. We rehearsed beneath a porch – that's where the name Alpendre [porch] comes from – and we certainly didn’t have anything we could call our own, so we did a very simple play, a comic operetta. But we did it at the best possible time; today that couldn’t happen," he recounts.

   At that time, when television was still in its infancy and was broadcasting only a few hours a day, theater was a good diversion. And the fact is that the public wanted to see the new things we presented on stage. Since then, Alpendre has not stopped, having mounted 98 plays.

   These plays were never intended for a big-city audience. For a long time the amateur group’s actors appeared in towns and neighborhoods, and it was from this experience that they realized it would be worthwhile to continue – even presenting unfamiliar texts.

  For Álamo Oliveira, who today is President of Alpendre’s board, there was in the early years of its life "a certain ingenuity," which was also responsible for the group’s success and longevity.