The Physical Theater Festival returns to Chicago for its 11th year
In the magical black box that is the theater, a skilled performer can turn human anguish into
beauty, bring the forgotten to life, and transform truth into action. In this space, differences in
nationality, race or language are not barriers.
“Macacos” writer/performer Clayton Nascimento has an astonishing mastery over the actor’s
tools of body, voice, imagination, intellect, and emotions. He surrenders his body and being to
the universal story he is compelled to relay about the effect and cause of Brazil’s Black
genocide.
“Macacos” means ape in the blend of Brazil dialects that merged in a country that has been
colonialized by many nations.
Nascimento enters the darkened stage, wearing only a pair of shorts and tight bands above his
biceps. He chants Ma-ca-cos, circling the stage like a predator around an invisible enemy,
hurling insults at the Other, calling them apes and dangerous criminals.
Nascimento also portrays the Other, cowering, sweating with fear, eyes wide, head lowered, the
person for whom nothing is possible, perhaps not even survival.
But Nascimento the artist reminds us we are in the theater, an arena where everything is
possible. A space where even the Other can become a Diva. His posture unfolds and
transforms into an array of majestic Divas, Pop Diva, Jazz Diva, Gospel Diva.
Early into the Chicago premiere of “Macacos” it felt as if a wordless transaction had taken place
between actor and audience. Nascimento’s embodied storytelling would hold us rapt for a 90-
minute theatrical ritual, and in exchange, the audience would give its full attention.
As a theatrical vessel, Nascimento sweats, begs, slaps, drips, punishes, and soars like an
angel. His curly hair and open face give him a cherubic and mischievous charisma.
The story he has come to impart to us is this: 9-year-old Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira was playing
outside his home in Rio de Janeiro one evening, when he was brutally shot and killed by military
police officers who claimed to believe he was a robber and his toy car was a gun. Eduardo’s
mother Terezinha, asleep inside when it happened, went out to call him in for the evening and
found her lifeless boy just outside the door.
It is spellbinding to watch as Nascimento embodies Terezinha. He shows us her disbelief,
recognition, despair, and primal need for answers to the how and why of her son’s murder.
Nascimento also shows us Eduardo’s playful spirit dancing just over Terezinha’s head calling
out to her, and her inability to hear him.
We experience Terezinha’s powerlessness in her attempt to seek help from the police and the
disdain shown toward her by the criminal justice establishment who cannot even muster the
effort to note her occupation correctly.
If this sounds hard to experience – rest assured that the virtuosity of a skilled physical performer
like Nascimento – makes it beautiful. Yes, there is saliva, sweat and stomping. But there is
divinity, connection, and hope too.
Divine moments are relayed in the form of present day Terezinha, who confronts Nascimento
the actor, when she learns he has been portraying her with “Macacos.” Apprehensive, we
wonder along with Nascimento whether Terenzinha will try to stop him from future reenactments
of Eduardo’s death and her grief. But what she asks is for him to deliver us a message from her.
Her message, many years after Eduardo’s murder, is that she dreams about him. She thinks
about the silly things he said, and charming things did. She remembers their closeness and
rituals. She still aches to embrace him but can’t. Her grief endures.
This is a work of Living Theater and Terezinha’s message is its beating heart.
Terezinha’s message delivered, Nascimento begins to sketch out the history of Brazil’s
colonization. Using his body as a map, and a red lipstick as his pointer, he illustrates how the
first colonists to land in Brazil – and there were many colonizing countries in Brazil –tried to
enlist the Indigenous people into helping them import Africans to Brazil for agricultural labor. But
native Brazilians including the ancestor fondly referred to as “The Dragon of the Sea” resisted
cooperating in the enslavement of their African brethren.
After a brief intro to Brazilian history, Nascimento morphs into a game show host, to test our
knowledge of Brazil. His enthusiasm and playfulness were infectious, and I found myself along
with much of the audience entering the game free of self-consciousness shouting responses to
Nascimento’s robust encouragement.
In the next phase, Nascimento bids the projected subtitles to go away and the houselights to
come up. His research on Black genocide becomes a group research project. He draws out
members of the audience to identify their home countries and invites us into the project. The
night I saw “Macacos” nationalities represented within the audience included Mauritania, Italy,
Israel, Brazil, India, and the U.S.
Nascimento asked what we might teach him about Black history in the U.S. to add to his living
work of theater.
Audience members offered up several historical anecdotes, including the July 27, 1919, stoning,
and drowning of Eugene Williams, the Black teenager who drifted outside of a racially
segregated zone of Lake Michigan and was stoned and drowned by a group of white men,
precipitating the Chicago Race Riot.
“Macacos” has reached audiences in Brazil and around the world. Because of this, Eduardo’s
murder case was eventually re-opened, exposing the impunity of the police in his death.
In the closing moments of “Macacos,” Nascimento urges audience members to go home and
study their own Black history. With the vision of Eduardo’s spirit dancing over our heads, and the
force of Terezinha’s divine love for her son, how can we not?
The theatrical ritual of “Macacos” would not be possible without the small but mighty
organization that is the Physical Theater Festival of Chicago. For 11 years, the group has
created opportunities for performance artists from around the world to introduce their work to
Chicago’s theater loving audiences. The festival is also committed to keeping ticket prices low
and affordable for all.
To echo Nascimento, in this arena where everything is possible, where unspeakable cruelty and
violence can be transformed into hope and action, entities like the Physical Theater Festival are
a vital conduit and are most worthy of our patronage.
"Macacos" played July 18,19,20 at Theatre Wit at 1229 W. Belmont in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. For more information go to https://www.physicalfestival.com/macacos
For more reviews go to https://www.theatreinchicago.com
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