Shakespeare Parodied_ Romeo and Juliet

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Shakespeare Parodied: Romeo and Juliet
Thaïs Flores Nogueira Diniz
In studying the reception of Shakespeare in Brazil, I examine Shakespeare from an angle
that highlights the multiplicity of readings his texts can sustain and the reactions they provoke in
contexts different from those of their origin. Thus I approach the playwright with a particular gaze,
which aims at understanding the aspects of Brazilian literature and culture that have welcomed him.
I seek to trace the repercussions that the dissemination of his works have had on Brazilian literary
and cultural life.
Brazilian producers like Paulo Afonso Grisolli, Watson Macedo and a number of soap
opera writers have attempted to reinvest Shakespeare with the popular character attributed to him in
his time, a treatment that is fundamental for his acceptance as today he runs the risk of being
anathema to the masses. To avoid the antagonism his work can arouse, his text has been
“popularized” through citations in less orthodox contexts, where it may be possible to make
parallels with present facts which will contribute to the understanding of Shakespeare by ordinary
people. Certain Shakespearean citations can be classified as satire or parody, but especially as
appropriation, which indicates a certain degree of political commitment systematically challenging
authority and creating the idea that “sacred texts”, such as Shakespeare’s, can no longer be seen as
repositories of wisdom but rather as places of contestation. This demystifying procedure is a
political project to reclaim power and culture from the hands of the oligarchy. Through this lens,
parody has no negative character nor does it possess a regenerating function. Instead, it represents
that double resource which, instead of merely ridiculing, confers value on that which is cited.
According to Schwarz, “[p]arody is one of the most combative of literary forms, so long as that is
its intention. And anyway, a little contemplation never did anyone any harm. Aside from which, in
countries where culture is imported, parody is almost a natural form of criticism: it simply makes
explicit unintentional parodies which are in any case inevitable (1992,40)”. In this connection, I
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particularly aim at an analysis of the appropriation of part of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet by the
filmmaker Watson Macedo, a Brazilian director, screenwriter and art director, in a 1949 film
entitled Carnaval no Fogo [Carnaval in the Fire].
The film belongs to a Brazilian genre “carnavalesque film-musical”⎯the chanchada—
which presented itself, in the Forties and Fifties, as an important mass entertainment genre. Coined
in the 1930s, the term chanchada refers to derivative, light musical comedies, mixing love stories
and staged musical numbers and always involving samba. Chanchadas were used to promote
carnival music and were often modelled on Hollywood movies of the same era. Chanchadas looked
for inspiration beyond their shores, to create what Roberto Schwartz calls “mirror culture”, copying
well-known films and imposing an alien reality on their audience. As two examples of this genre,
both by Carlos Manga, I would like to mention the burlesque of High Noon: the 1954 Matar ou
Correr, [To Kill or to run away] and Nem Sansão e nem Dadila [Neither Samson nor Delilah],
1954, which satirized Cecil B. de Mille’s 1949 Samson and Delilah. Despite being naïve, these
films display an irreverent critique of the sacred dominant model (Shaw).
In the archetypal chanchada plot four basic stages can be identified: firstly a young man or
woman becomes embroiled in a sticky situation, secondly, a comic character tries to protect him or
her, thirdly, the villain gains the upper hand, and finally, the villain is defeated (Shaw). The core of
the chanchada was the exchange⎯of objects and identities. It is around an exchange that the
intrigue in the film Carnaval no Fogo is set up. The story is simple as in all chanchadas. A gang of
thieves is hidden in the Copacabana Palace, at the time the most luxurious hotel in Rio. Ricardo
[who is played by the actor Anselmo Duarte], the director of the nightclub, finds the cigarette case
of the villain “the Angel” [played by José Lewgoy]. By using the silver case, he is identified by the
members of the gang as their leader, in a classic case of mistaken identity. The heroine and her
friend are “protected” by two comic characters [played by the famous comic actors, Oscarito and
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Grande Otelo, who appeared together in thirteen of Atlantida films and ensured huge popular
appeal] and all ends well, following the traditional happy-end structure of all chanchadas.
Belonging to the genre chanchada, which traditionally relies on exchange, Carnaval no
Fogo is rich in disguises, inversions, and appropriations of identity, for dissimulation and fraud
always offer a lot of humorous ammunition to comedy. The film boasts many types of inversion but
it is transvestism—the most carnivalesque way of getting into another person’s shoes⎯that supplies
one of the most humorous moments in the film. This—the object of my analysis —consists in a
kind of citation, a graft from the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in which the well
known Afro-Brazilian actor, Grande Otelo, plays Juliet.
A detached moment within the film, the scene bears no direct relation to the plot of
Carnaval no Fogo. It has to do with the fact that the protagonist, a janitor at the luxury hotel,
intends to convince his brother that he is an actor. In order to do so, he first tries to get the manager
of the hotel show to let him play Romeo in the balcony scene. The rehearsal of two scenes from the
Shakespearean play (Act II, scene 2, and Act III, scene 5) is all that the audience can see of this
comic performance. Of course, both scenes take place in the Capulet’s garden, one after the masked
ball where Romeo and Juliet fall in love, the other after their wedding-night. As inserted in the
Brazilian film, the excerpts become extremely funny. They are played by Oscarito, well-known to
the Brazilian audience for his comic talent, well-suited to the awkward protagonist, who ruins the
performance and of course fails to convince anybody that he is an actor.
I quote a few lines of the Portuguese text, a free rendering of Shakespeare’s—translated
back into English by Edson Lopes, Maria Lúcia Vasconcellos and Thomas Burns—sprinkled with
comic additions and acted in a frankly parodic way. The stage directions in Sergio Augusto’s text
[quoted in the appendix] make clear that as the would-be Romeo comes in, he dusts off his clothes,
does a pirouette and looks up at Juliet’s balcony, still empty at that hour. He speaks with mocking
emphasis, synchronizing the words with a slightly exaggerated articulation: “With love’s light
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wings did I o’erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out...” [Com as asas do amor
transpus eu esses muros, pois muralhas de pedra o amor não contém.]
As a light appears in Juliet’s window the janitor-turned-Romeo asks himself: “What light is
that on the balcony? Can it be Juliet, or is she not coming?” [Que luz é aquela no balcão? Será
Julieta, ou será que ela não vem?]. The black comic actor who plays Juliet then appears on the
balcony, dressed as a young woman, with long blonde braids, his eyes accentuated by huge pastedon eyelashes, and his mouth grotesquely smeared with lipstick. At “her” entrance, the false Romeo
exclaims “It's her! It can only be her! And Juliet is the sun! Arise fair sun and kill the envious
moon, already sick and pale with grief”. [É ela! Só pode ser ela!]. To which “Juliet”, rolling “her”
eyes, responds with a sigh: “Ay me!”. In ecstasy, “Romeo” comments in an aside to the audience:
“She speaks! O Speak, again, [white] angel!”[Ela falou!.. Fala de novo, ó anjo esplendoroso! ].
“Juliet”, not quite sure of her part, asks “But what am I going to say, Romeo?” [Mas o que é que eu
vou falar, Romeu?] and gets a somewhat aggressive answer: “Say anything! Don’t stand there
pretending to be Belinda! “ [Fala qualquer coisa! Não fique aí bancando a Belinda!]. This answer is
in fact a reference to Belinda, the dumb female character played by Jane Wyman in the Negulesco´s
1948 film Johnny Belinda: a reminder of the fact that the chanchadas not only only reworked
American films but also alluded to, adopted and adapted elements from them.
From then on, the dialogue goes like this:
Grande Otelo as Juliet: Romeo! Romeo! Romeo!
Oscarito as Romeo: [more aggressive] That’s enough! [Chega!]
Grande Otelo as Juiet: Can thy love be like mine? [Será o seu amor igual ao meu?]
Oscarito as Romeo: Madam, by yonder blessed moon I vow... [Senhora, eu vou jurar
pelo esplendor da lua...]
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Grande Otelo as Juliet: O swear not by the moon, it is inconstant and is always
changing quarters. [Não jureis pela lua. Ela é muito leviana e está sempre mudando de
quarto.]
I venture to try to explain a pun embedded here. The Brazilian “Juliet”, referring to the
moon’s inconstancy, uses the Portuguese word “quarto” instead of the English “quarters” as she
says: “‘O swear not by the moon,’ it is inconstant and is always changing quartos”. The word
“quartos” has a double meaning in Portuguese, as it may mean both “ quarters”, or “phases”, of the
moon, and “bed-rooms”, or “sleeping-quarters”. Macedo, the author of the Brazilian script, is of
course alluding to Shakespeare’s love of puns.
Oscarito as Romeo: My love, let me caress thy [ivory] hands, feel all the brightness
of thine [blue] eyes, ‘two of the fairest stars in all the heaven’. [Meu amor, deixa eu
acariciar as suas mãos alvas de cetim, sentir todo o brilho dos teus olhos, que são estrelas
para mim.]
A slightly racist overtone may perhaps be felt here, as the black actor who plays Juliet could hardly
have “blue eyes” and “ivory hands”. One should remember that the film under analysis dates back
to 1949, precisely the year when anti-racist laws (The Afonso Arinos Bill) was to be enacted in
Brazil.
Grande Otelo as Juliet: Ay!
Oscarito as Romeo: Oh! Hold on there. [Agüenta aí!]
The comedy in these exchanges results mainly from the contrast between the recognizable,
impassioned Shakespearean speeches and a number of comic resources: gestures and body
language, exaggerated make-up and facial expressions, the allusion to the 1948 Hollywood
blockbuster Johnny Belinda, as well as from the fact that both Romeo and Juliet are played by two
well-known Brazilian comic male actors, one of whom, the “blonde” “Juliet”, is black.
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This said, we may now go on listening to the dialogue between the “lovers”, once “Romeo”,
who needs “Juliet”’s help, has climbed up the wall that gives access to the balcony. The flagrant
additions to the Shakespearean text, recited with mock seductiveness, now enhance the comic
effect:
Grande Otelo as Juliet: O, Romeo! The mask of night hides on my face, and thou
canst see uprightness of my maid’s feeling. My love! [Oh, Romeu! A máscara noturna
esconde a minha face, e tu não podes ver o meu pudor de donzuela (sic). Meu amor!]
Oscarito as Romeo: My beloved! Why art thou so lovely? [Minha amada! Por que
és tão bela?]
Grande Otelo as Juliet: Romeo, I hear steps within. Go, Romeo, he wants to kill
thee! [Romeu, ouço passos lá dentro. Vai, Romeu, ele quer te matar!]
Oscarito as Romeo: He who? [Ele quem?]
Grande Otelo as Juliet: My father, lord of the Capulets. If he spies thee here... [Meu
pai, o senhor de Capuleto. Se ele te vir aqui...]
Oscarito as Romeo: I’ll be slaughtered like a steer... [Vai ser um espeto!]
Romeo’s affirmation contains another comic use of slang:“Vai ser um espeto!” which means “It’ll
be embarrassing.” The humor here lies in the use of the word, espeto which rhymes with Capuleto
The dialogue proceeds in the same mock-lyrical tone, with the comic effect highlighted by
puns which would hardly work in a translation into English. Finally, after a parody of the famous
exchange about the lark and the nightingale, “Juliet ” angrily says good-bye to “Romeo”. The
colloquial phrases further add to the parodic effect:
“Juliet” (angry): ‘Three words, dear Romeo and good night, indeed’: see you
tomorrow, see you later, see you soon.
To end up the scene, “Romeo” slips from the balcony as he comes down.
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As the reader can see, mockery and self-mockery, involving the rewriting of the original
text, have all the while contributed to the moving away from the tragic Shakespearean space to the
comic chanchada of Brazilian cinema. The personalities of the popular Brazilian comedians, both
acknowledged as clumsy clowns, also add up to a carnavalesque demystification of a scene that has
often aroused reverence in critics, readers and theater-goers. The inclusion of other elements
discussed above⎯ gestures, their inconsistency with speeches, body language, facial expressions,
popular culture allusions, word-play involving slang⎯ everything systematically helps to “tear
away” the aura of the original.
In the scene discussed, the citation/insertion consists of a mere fragment⎯a brief parodied
Shakespearean text within a Brazilian chanchada—which radically destroys any unity or coherence
that the “original” material could have had and makes the canonical yield to the popular.
Yet, by somehow making high culture accessible to the less educated, this parodic insertion
in an otherwise popular script involves a certain political commitment, as well as an example of
complicity with the mass public. It challenges the authority and the cultural standards of the
dominant class, who have always scorned chanchadas. The subversive and political nature of this
commitment becomes evident, when the 17th century canonical text is parodied.
This procedure is similar to the one undertaken by the Brazilian modernist movement,
which advocated the use of native material, turned against artifice, and encouraged Brazilian artists
to rebel against the European aesthetic, past and present. This is what we call Cannibalism, a word
which, from its literal meaning, “the practice of eating the flesh of one’s fellow-creatures” ( OED )
came to be associated with a particular Brazilian literary movement of the 20’s, called
“Anthropophagia”. The movement, a reaction against the subservient copying of foreign models,
mainly European, aimed at the creation of an original Brazilian national identity and culture through
the absorption and digestion of European culture. “Cannibalism entails not the denial but the
absortion and transformation of external input by the addition of autochthonous material (Vieira
1996, 11)”. Cannibalism also represented the intention of moving against the elitist use of high
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culture to dismiss popular/native knowledge and exclude the masses from participation in the
making of the national cultural agenda. Thus, in the chanchada, Brazilian identity is allowed to
emerge as it mocks foreign canonical works, or as the modernists would have it, cannibalizes them.
As we simultaneously poke fun at Shakespeare and at ourselves, we Brazilians demystify European
models [and incidentally, also American films]. We thus react against cultural patterns which have
been imposed on us—including the cinematographic market. The insertion of the Romeo and Juliet
scene, then represents a parodic “brazilianization,” a proceeding that has its roots in our
Modernism, with its emphasis on appropriation, cannibalization and creative metamorphosis. In this
line, Carnaval no Fogo simultaneously challenges the dominant class´s cultural standards, which
dismiss the chanchadas and other forms of pop art. By giving status to popular culture and
ridiculing examples of elite culture, it also provides an example of the political use of the cinema.
It might perhaps be added that the film under analysis somehow plays tribute to
Shakespeare: like him, the Brazilian author is trying to please the contemporary popular audience.
The chanchadas of the Forties and Fifties, notwithstanding the ill-will of our pedants,
unconsciously repeated the theatrical phenomenon of the Elizabethan era: the production of popular
spectacles without any regard for the judgment of posterity.
__________________________
Appendix
O primeiro a entrar em cena é Oscarito. Fantasiado de Romeu, ele tira o pó da
roupa, faz um de seus habituais giros sobre si mesmo, mira a sacada de Julieta, àquela hora
ainda vazia e exclama: “com as asas do amor transpus eu esses muros, pois muralhas de
pedra o amor não contém”. Fala com uma certa veemência na voz, escandindo as palavras
com ênfase zombateira e sincronizando-as com uma aritculacão ligeiramente puxada para o
exagero. Uma luz se acende no quarto de Julieta. Oscarito se pergunta: “Que luz é aquela no
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balcão? Será Julieta, ou será que ela não vem?”. Aí dá um assovio, espera dois segundos e
se regozija: “É ela! Só pode ser ela!”
Otelo surge na sacada, travestido de Julieta, com longas tranças louras, os olhos
realçados por imensos cílios postiços e a boca grotescamente lambuzada de batom. Ao
perceber sua chegada, Oscarito lhe lança a primeira declaração de amor, exortando-a a
expor-se mais na sacada para matar de inveja “a lua pálida de tristeza”. Extasiado, Oscarito
comenta para a platéia: “Ela falou!.. Fala de novo, ó anjo esplendoroso! “
Otelo: Mas o que é que eu vou falar, Romeu?
Oscarito (ligeiramente agressivo): Fala qualquer coisa! Não fica aí bancando a
Belinda!
Otelo: Romeu! Romeu! Romeu!
Oscarito (mais agressivo): Chega!
Otelo: Será o seu amor igual ao meu?
Oscarito: Senhora, eu vou jurar pelo esplendor da lua...
Otelo: Não jureis pela lua. Ela é muito leviana e está sempre mudando de quarto.
Oscarito: Meu amor, deixa eu acariciar as suas mãos alvas de cetim, sentir todo o
brilho dos teus olhos, que são estrelas para mim.
Otelo: Ai!
Oscarito: Oh!
Oscarito: Agüenta aí!
Ajudado por Otelo, Oscarito escala a parede que dá acesso ao balcão e reinicia a
sua cantada:
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Oscarito: Julieta! Quero sentir o perfume do corpo teu, perfume que extasia e
tonteia este Romeu. Quero beijar a polpa virginal dos lábios teus, para que sintas a
rubra flor dos lábios meus. Corpo e alma entregues a esta aventura louca. Julieta!
Oh, Julieta! Como é? Tou aí nessa boca?
Otelo: Oh, Romeu! A máscara noturna esconde a minha face, e tu não podes ver o
meu pudor de donzuela (sic). Meu amor!
Oscarito: Minha amada! Por que és tão bela?
Otelo: Romeu, ouço passos lá dentro. Vai, Romeu, ele quer te matar!
Oscarito: Ele quem?
Otelo: Meu pai, o senhor de Capuleto. Se ele te vir aqui...
Oscarito: Vai ser um espeto...
Otelo: Vai Romeu, deves partir. Vem perto a madrugada... (fingindo ouvir algo ao
longe) é o rouxinol que cantou na ramada.
Oscarito: Não é o rouxinol, é a cotovia, antecipando o sol.
Otelo: Não, Romeuzinho, é o rouxinol.
(Augusto 1989, 192-194 )
___________________________
Works cited:
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das Letras, 1989.
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Harry Zohn. Glasgow: Fontana/ Collins, 1973.
De Mille, Cecil B [dir]. Samson and Delilah, Paramount, 1949.
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Dias, Rosângela de Oliveira. O mundo como chanchada: cinema e imaginário das classes
populares na década de 50. [The world as chanchada: popular classes´s cinema and imaginary
in the fifties]. Rio de Janeiro: Dumará Distribuidora de Publicações Ltda, 1993.
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----- [dir] Matar ou Correr, Atlantida, 1954.
----- [dir] Nem Sansão nem Dalila, Atlântida, 1954.
Negulesco, Jean [dir] Johnny Belinda, MGM, 1948.
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st
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