Guarnieri, Gianfrancesco (1934–2006)

Gianfrancesco Guarnieri (b. 6 August 1934, d. 22 July 2006), Brazilian dramatist and actor. Guarnieri was a central figure in modern Brazilian theater and was particularly associated with the Arena Theater of São Paulo. His political orientation was Marxist, and his Brechtian theatrical technique requires the audience's direct emotional participation in the action to achieve a type of classical catharsis. Eles não usam black-tie (1958), his most celebrated play, presents the inevitable personal tragedy resulting from disunity in workers' struggles. Other dramas question the accepted truths of Brazilian history and the nation's contemporary reality. His Ponto de partida (1976) is an allegorical protest against the military regime's murder of journalist Vladimir Herzog. The last play he wrote, A luta secreta de Maria da Encarnação, was finished in 2001.

See alsoArt: The Twentieth Century; Herzog, Vladimir; Theater.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Leslie Damasceno, "Theater History," in Dictionary of Brazilian Literature (1988).

Irwin Stern, "Guarnieri, Gianfrancesco," in Dictionary of Brazilian Literature (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Anderson, Robert Nelson. Realism, Allegory, and the Strangled Cry: Theatrical Semiosis in the Drama of Gianfrancesco Guarnieri. Valencia, Spain: Albatros, 1998.

Roveri, Sérgio. Gianfrancesco Guarnieri: Um grito solto no ar. São Paulo: Cultura, Fundação Padre Anchieta, 2004.

                                            Irwin Stern