Description
In 1968, the Popular Theater of Coelhos ( Teatro Popular dos Coelhos, TPC) was born in
Recife, in a waterlogged area. Since its inception it has been linked to Operation Hope
(Operação Esperança), of the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, entity directed to the
organization of the communities of low income, in which TPC wanted emancipatory
actions. The TPC remained attached to the Archdiocese while Archbishop Helder Camara
lasted. During this period, he developed cultural and mobilization activities, being the
oldest community theater group integrated to the pastoral projects of the Church in
Pernambuco, between 1964 and 1985. During the period of the Brazilian civil-military
dictatorship, it was a focus of resistance to social exclusion of peripheral segments of the
population. At the same time, it reflected a new praxis of the Catholic institution, intended
since the Second Vatican Council. The survival of TPC to adversity can also be credited
to Dom Helder's personal commitment to the art of representation, to be among the
resources available for evangelism. This research focuses on the trajectory of the Teatro
Popular dos Coelhos, whose memory is submerged, although at the moment of its
realization it has guaranteed for itself a place as a political, artistic and evangelizing
subject. The relation between religion and theater appears theorized in this work from two
basic concepts: the theater of catechesis and the theater of evangelization. The first aimed
to fit new communities to a world that was wanted to be immutable, and the latter, here
taking as reference the TPC itself was to transform the world by producing insurgent
narratives. The profile not only conceptual but mainly investigative and intended
memory-building in this dissertation gave him, as a structural support, besides
bibliographical consultations, the collection of personal testimonies, without which it
would not have been possible to reconstiture, though partially, the history of the Popular
Theater of Coelhos.
