Kassandra

I've never been a regular theatergoer, unfortunately. When I go, I go to a show, concert, awards show, but I rarely go to see a play. The ones I watch are usually staged outdoors, as a result of some intervention, or in other venues, in short, other than a theater specifically. For these and other reasons, perhaps this is one of the reasons I went to see this play. In addition to all the curiosity about the play itself, there was still this reason: the place where it would be staged. Out of a theater, out of all that traditional atmosphere. It takes place, as the local brochure says, in an “artistic show house”, an unconventional space, in the center of the capital.

One Saturday night, I went to this house. I faced a small queue, with people of all genders and ages – when in this place, the most common are men, over 18 years old. Once inside, I thought it was funny that they showed cartoons – Bugs Bunny, to be exact – on the big screens. At first, I thought it was a way to relax the customers although at that time the customers were there for something else. I was there to watch Kassandra.

Kassandra? What is Kassandra? Who is Kassandra?

Kassandra is the protagonist of the homonymous play, directed by Renato Turnes, and that has the actress Milena Moraes playing the character of Greek mythology, Cassandra, princess daughter of the Trojan king Priam and Hecuba, sister of Hector and Paris – the same one who stole Helen from her husband, Menelaus, thus initiating the war between Greeks and Trojans.

In the re-reading, Kassandra is born a man, however, early on, she discovers a transgender woman and assumes her transsexuality, as she feels at ease, possessing herself. She becomes a sex warrior. She falls in love with her brother Hector and causes chaos in their family. In addition, she possesses the gift of clairvoyance, foreseeing the tragedy that war would bring upon her people. However, she is considered crazy by her countrymen, being imprisoned in a tower, only having freedom when Troy is consumed by flames.

Milena plays the character in a very sensual way, dressed in a tight black leather bodice, sporting a flowing hairstyle and who, with her 15-inch heel, whose straps intertwine along the legs, acquires an even more aggressive look, wilder to the powerful. Princess. Dancing, singing and simulating sex on the stage bars and on the bar counter, between bottles and customers, in full view of the spectators, who also become, between a sip of whiskey and a speech by the character – all in archaic English , rough, used to tell its story, to survive the world and communicate, for being a “universally understandable” language – characters, extras in the play. With that English she declaims, in her own way, the song that says that “the winner wins all”, by the Abba group. And yes, she can be considered a winner.

It is worth remembering that this is not the first “house” where the presentation takes place. Its first production dates from 2010, performed in Uruguay, with text by the playwright Sérgio Blanco. It underwent several re-assemblies around the world, from Cuba to Greece. In Brazil, since 2012, the company La Vaca de Teatro is responsible for the piece.

Between Kassandra and the audience, another character worth mentioning is the same Bugs Bunny who appeared on the big screens before the show. The same Bugs Bunny – or Bugs Bunny, as Kassandra repeats in rudimentary English – now in the form of a smiling plush doll, considered the artist's true friend, companion, on her (sub)mundane journey. It is also from him that the inspiration for the mask that Kassandra wears during the play comes, giving an exotic show to those present. The mask of a bizarre, sinister rabbit; a rabbit that bears the marks of the night and the war it is made of.

Kassandra, the bunny, Playboy bunny, sex warrior and Trojan princess incarnated in a corset, masks, ears, and, in the absence of a bunny tail, a horseradish. by horse.

Although I have never seen any other work by the actress or the director, I know of their long trajectories and the due recognition they have in Santa Catarina and Brazilian theater. parts like UZ, Mi Muñequita, Trilogia Lugosi, As Felicianas, Teatro de 5º, DR, among many others, prove this and do not let me lie; are undisputed blockbusters. And Kassandra is another one of those successes, indisputably.

Thus, Kassandra is more than a play, more than a character; it is a piece of history recapitulated in her way, in her time, told in her own way: naked and raw, violent and intense, in the vision of a warrior and a princess, as only she can be. 

Gabriel Faraco
gabriellfaraco@gmail.com

Photos: Vanessa Soares/André Miranda/Disclosure