BRAZIL: What Will Lavonians Say?

Whenas the swallows, fleeing before the hoopoes, shall have all flocked together in one place, and shall refrain them from all amorous commerce, then will be the end of all the ills of life.

—Lysistrata

With all the swish and swank that Brazilian high society could bestow, the new play Helena Fechou a Porta (Helen Closes the Door) opened in Rio’s Copacabana Theater fortnight ago. It was the first dramatic work of the capital’s literary darling, Accily Netto. Its producer was Fernando de Barros, one of Brazil’s foremost theatrical personalities. And its sponsor was Senhora Darcy Vargas, wife of Brazil’s onetime dictator, now bustling along the comeback trail.

Friends of the “Old Regime” (as the Vargas dictatorship is euphemistically described) turned out in a gala mood. Vargas’ handsome, black-eyed daughter, Alzira, a political power in her own right, arrived on the arm of her husband, Comandante Amaral Peixoto; graciously greeted many of her father’s cronies. Few knew or seemed to care what the play was about. They talked of Dona Darcy’s “workers’ restaurant,” which would benefit from the performance. But after the curtain rose, the relaxed amiability quickly changed.

Inspired by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, Netto’s play is a sharp little satire on the sensitive subject of dictatorship. Its action takes place in a mythical Lavonia, run by bumbling Strongman Pepito and his beautiful blonde wife Helen, a former chorus girl (“You kick the feet high and show the pants, but I got tired of raising my legs”). Now leader of 305 feminist fronts, Helen is her country’s strongwoman. Pepito wants to declare war against neighboring Brazinia and pick up some loot in oil, uranium and wheat. But the people of Lavonia, especially its women, are opposed to the war. Helen leads the movement against her husband’s saber rattling. She summons the women of Lavonia to slam shut their bedroom doors if their husbands start marching. Grumbles Pepito: “This peace business smells of Communism.” In the end, Helen’s tactics win. Pepito even promises to call constitutional elections.

When the curtain fell, the first-nighters knew that Playwright Netto had aimed his shafts at Argentina, but also taken a few sideswipes at Vargas-style dictatorship. They clapped perfunctorily, demanded no curtain calls, trooped out unrelaxed and unsmiling.

Last week, as the Rio press gleefully picked up the story, Producer de Barros gallantly observed that Dona Darcy’s sponsorship was just a “strange coincidence.” But the most intriguing question on caríocas’ tongues was: “What will the Lavonians say?”

The hint of an answer came when the Argentine embassy sent a representative to the Brazilian Foreign Office with a polite request for an official investigation of Helen Closes the Door. Next night, a Foreign Office man saw the show, observed the proceedings carefully, stalked off without comment. Meanwhile, caríocas flocked to see the titillating play.