It was not like a regular workshop as the cheerful faces of the participants belied that any “work” was involved.
It was more like an intimate gathering of friends and notwithstanding the language barrier, a theatre workshop with an emphasis on famous Brazilian playwright, Nelson Rodrigues continued at the Brazilian Cultural Centre yesterday with all the participants being fully absorbed.
From applying exercises utilizing scenes from Rodrigues’s plays to working with the expressions of the body to psychological profiles, all with Rodrigues’s work in mind, the participants were fully engrossed as the four Brazilian theatre actors guided them through.
Rodrigues is considered to be Brazil’s most important playwright and wrote 17 full-length plays. He also wrote hundreds of short stories and was also a journalist.
Leader of the Brazilian group, Nevri Mossmann, with more than 20 years experience as an actor and director and for the past ten years attached to the State University of Parana told Stabroek News that each scene enacted by the participants, many of whom were Guyanese, was a surprise.
Mossmann, who is carrying out a project involving the formation of theatre groups in the Brazil state of Parana, said that the university was responsible for sending the group here as part of Carifesta.
He described the participants as very spontaneous and very involved in the exercises. He asserted that apart from the beauty of the races, the colour makes the work even richer and said for his group it has been an exchange. He noted that it is with the exercises that they get to experiment with the interpretations and composing of scenes. “Each scene that they mount here, it’s a surprise”, he said via a translator. He noted too that what was very interesting is the live music that they work with. The workshop, which commenced on Monday, ends today.
