Theatrical carpenters, the criticism and the magazine theater

Abstract

In the early decades of the 20th century, both the popular recited theater and the music theater were confronted with contrasts and confrontations that marked the emergence of expressive concern for the valorization of what was genuinely Brazilian, addressing the issue of nationality and, above all, a clear preference for discussion and/or representation of themes that were contemporary, thus consolidating the identity and reflecting the difficulties of that time. Much of what is known about the theatrical and cultural scene of this period comes from notes, advertisements and chronicles published in newspapers and magazines of the time, from the plays with metalinguistic allusions of novels, short stories and books of memory. The objective is to present some of these critics and commentators, whom we consider as “theatrical carpenters”, and to analyze a series of texts with different authorship and purposes, which referred to spectacles, actors and actresses and theaters at that time.