Lest forget.

Lest never happens again.

A short play by Marcia Zanelatto for Theatre 503

Young actresses of Brazilian theater in March of the Hundred Thousand, June 26, 1968, in Rio de Janeiro

Traduction by Bruno Murtinho

Marcia Zanelatto © all rights reserved
Contacts: 55-21-98865-3805
zanelatto.marcia@gmail.com

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Lest forget. Lest never happens again.

A 20 year-old woman, dressed as in the 1960’s, with thick-rimmed

glasses and short hair, as the intellectuals of the time used. She
brings some notepads and pens and offers them to the audience.
Leaves.

The scenic space is divided into two parts.

A 70-year-old lady dressed with a sober

elegance brings a chair. She sits and talks
to the audience in front of her as the
audience of a court trial.

Lady – The land that today is known as

National State of Brazil exists for 60,000
years on Earth.

Archeologists found human bones in it

mixed with pre-historical traces. It’s one
of the first findings that contradict the
biblical creation.

Middens, mounts of fossils, organized as

such on purpose, have been found
throughout the shoreline. Recent studies
suggest that these middens were
produced by people who lived by the
Brazilian shore between 2 to 8 thousand
years ago.

These people had the habit of

ornamenting the dead with objects that
resisted time such as bones, teethe and
shark and monkey vertebrae, as well as
shell necklaces.

This civilization is prior to the indigenous

people and little is known about it.

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At the other half of the scenic space, a
water leak at about 2 meters high stands
out from the darkness slightly
illuminated. In the year 1500 AD, about 58,500 years
later the “discovery of Brazil” had been
established.

When the European colonizers began to

A man enters and puts a metal 45 cm travel by the shore, about two million
diameter washbowl under the water leak indigenous people lived in the region.
and leaves.

The leak is louder now because of the

washbowl.
The man returns bringing in his arms a
motionless woman, 20 years old, but who
is naked and alive. Her hair is totally
shaved and there are so many bruises in
her body that her body is bluish. The man
places the woman standing on the
washbowl. He adjusts her head so that it
stays right under the leak. He leaves.
The European fought long wars against
the indigenous nations. They’ve
dominated some native tribes while
others were enslaved or exterminated
European diseases to which they had no
immunity. The Tamoio native tribe was
nearly extinct.

In 1574, the last pocket of indigenous

The woman remains under the leak, but
when her head tilts, turning away from
the leak, we hear a noise of an electric
discharge, at the same time, there is a
flash that seems to come from the
washbowl. The woman falls.
resistance in the present Rio de Janeiro
state, was won by the Portuguese with an
untold number of killed and with the
capture of about ten thousand
indigenous slaves.
The survivors went North, without
stopping in an escape that lasted twenty
years.

The man enters. He passes a club under

each of her arms and makes her stand
again on the washbowl. The man stays

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behind her. He grabs her breasts, fondles
them and squashes them. He squeezes it.
He twists and pulls her nipples. He leaves.
The water leak keeps on dripping on the Today, the indigenous people don’t talk
woman’s head. their original Tupi language and there are
only 3,000 individuals left.

It became a tradition to celebrate Brazil’s

discovery, not its foundation.

Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese

navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral and it was
mainly colonized by Portugal.

During the colonial period, the

Portuguese Crown divided Brazil’s 3 287
612 square miles into 15 huge lots, called
Hereditary Captaincies and delegated the
task of colonizing and exploring these
lands to 12 proprietaries, members of the
nobility.

The 12 new owners of Brazil didn’t have

capital, but they received legal and taxes
privileges such as the right to founding
villages, collect taxes and apply the death
penalty to slaves, pagans and lower-class
free Christians.

After having the natives decimated and

Brazil becoming a great sugar producer,
the manpower problem made the
colonizers buy black slaves from Africa
who were traded by sugar-cane rum,
guns and fabrics. The slavers paid taxes to
the Crown.

The slaves who had good teeth, thin

shins, narrow hips and high heels

4

The woman falls on the ground. Lying flat,
with her face down, she has spasms.
The man enters and watches her.
She has a more violent spasm and stops
moving.
The woman gushes blood. The man gets
closer.
He takes a bit of the blood with his
fingers and examines it. He smells it. He
shows some rejoice.
The man frames himself in between her
legs, naked, lying face down. He opens his
pants and rapes her.
The woman, inert, gushes more blood.
The man comes. He gets up, closes his
pants and leaves. He doesn’t notice if
she’s dead or alive.
Darkness.
were the most expensive. The slaves
were rare and for many years were
more valuable than land that was
abundant.
Slaves were transported from Africa to
Brazil, jumbled and chained in the
holds of the slave ships.
From 1501 to 1866, 5,532,118 were
shipped. From these, 4,864,374 made
it alive. Thus, one million Africans
were thrown in the water of the
Atlantic Ocean.
Slaves worked for about 16 hours per
day and slept chained in sheds. When
the got distracted during work, they
were tortured, tied to tree logs and
whipped until they passed out.
The Bill 4 from June 10th, 1835 forbid
slaves to offend their master under the
penalty of being lashed or even death.
It was common for farmers or their
sons to make sex with their female
slaves, from which most of the
Brazilian mulatto population has
originated.
4,864,374 slaves made it alive to
Brazil from 1501. But in 1888, when
slavery was abolished, there were
only 500 thousand left. Another clear
genocide.
There were never measures to
integrate slaves o society in terms of
education, work and income.
5

The man returns with an iron chair,
stained with dried blood. He gets her up
As a direct reflex of the Hereditary
Captaincies, arises the “Colonel”
character – great farmers, civilian,
who dominated politics with their
direct contact with the rural
population, which was 80% of the
county at the time.
These colonels had the highest rank
in the National Guard and power over
their troops that were financially
supported by them.
When the slavery was abolished,
farmers go bankrupt and demand a
legal compensation, which was denied
by the Crown, but it then distributes
lifelong and hereditary public
functions. As revenge against the
Monarchy, the former slave owners
join the republican cause that was
defended by the army. On November
15th 1889, a military coup toppled the
monarchy. This event became known
as the Republic Proclamation.
Instead of calling for elections, the
military remained ruling the country
and implemented an new constitution,
that allowed voting rights only to
literate men – less than 50% of the
population at the time – and set the
first election to three years later.
In the same year, under a strong financial
crisis and with no way of negotiating with
the opposition, the republican
government violates its own constitution
and shuts down the National Congress.
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and sits her on the chair and ties her up in The opposition threatens to bomb the
it.
Electric wires stick out from the seat to a
small control with a dimmer.
Facing the woman, the man has fun
giving her shocks of different voltage at
her genitalia.
The man even sniggers from the reactions generals send a manifesto letter
he provokes.
When the body doesn’t react anymore the to
shocks, the man gets pissed off. He leaves.
Darkness.
Capital – that was Rio de Janeiro at the
time – and force the resignation of the
president, the Marshal Deodoro da
Fonseca. Another Marshal, Floriano
Peixoto takes over the presidency, once
again illegally, as the constitution
indicated that in case of resignation,
elections were to be called immediately.
The situation causes an uprising and 13
demanding presidential elections. The
government responds arresting the
generals and there was a battle known as
The Armada Uprising.
After the rebellion was contained,
oligarchic governments ruled. Their
power came from two great rural
producers groups. – From coffee and
from milk. They chose the presidents and
kept senators and representatives under
surveillance through the Powers
Verification Committees that had the
power to depose them at any time.
In the country, colonels controlled voters
to vote on the candidates defined by
them. Those who didn’t obey were
punished in several ways, from losing
their work until homicide. All kind of
frauds was practiced in order to
guarantee that the colonels’ candidates
were elected.
When the coffee producers manage to
elect two presidents in a row, there is a
split wit the milk producers’ group that
7

The man returns and sits the woman on the
chair. He shows her a spanking paddle. He
puts it on her nose so she can smell it. He
raises it high and pretends to hit her face, but
he stops before hitting her. He laughs.
He does it several times.
Then he hits her and the woman falls with
the chair. Darkness.
articulates a new military coup in 1930.
Its figurehead was Getúlio Vargas.
Vargas and the military should only take
over the presidency temporarily to
implement democratic reforms, but they
shut down the national congress and
begin the Emergency State.
From 1920, young military officers lead
the movement known as “Lieutenantism”
that fights the oligarchies’ power,
demanded the secret voting and the
education reforms.
One of the leaders of this group was
Carlos Prestes. He began to study Karl
Marx and moves to Soviet Union, from
where he returns aiming to make a
communist revolution in Brazil.
The left wing gets stronger through two
big parties. The right wing is inspired by
the fascism through the integralist,
catholic and conservative movement.
Getúlio Vargas begins to hunt the
Communists and arrests Carlos Prestes
that spends eight years incommunicado
and deports Prestes’ pregnant wife, the
German Olga Benario, to a Nazi
concentration camp in Germany.
A document called Cohen Plan, written by
the integralists, mapped a communist
revolution based on the use of torture,
coercion and violence. This document
was largely advertised by the government
and caused panic in the population and it
was an excuse to postpone elections, so
that Vargas and the military would make
8

The man returns with a bucket full of water.
He makes he knee before the bucket.
He drowns her head into the water, first for a Vargas’ government was a chief of police
short time until she reacts. Then, he
increases this time until her reaction is
desperate.
The light fades out giving the impression
that this will go on for a long time.
A pau-de-arara* is illuminated.
another military coup in 1937,
establishing a dictatorship called New
State that was supported by the medium
class.
Years later, it became known that the
Cohen Plan was just a fake study, forged
by a request from Getúlio’s movement.
One of the greatest characters from
that took care of the censorship
procedures to artistic and scientific
expressions. He also took care of the
extreme exaltation to Getúlio Vargas’
image.
When the Second World War comes,
Getúlio tries to keep the neutrality of
Brazil, but he is considered by the USA a
president with a fascist profile. When
German troops bomb the Brazilian fleet,
Getúlio negotiates Brazil’s entrance in the
war and it receives a massive investment
in its industrial park, as well as a refit of
the Brazilian armed forces. Getúlio gives
his allies total access to the Brazilian raw
materials, specially rubber and the
installation of a military base in the North
of Brazil. After the war is over the fascism
was defeated, Getúlio resigns.
Ten years later, Getúlio returns to power
as an elected president and creates
Petrobras – an oil state company – and is
pressured by part of the liberalists. Carlos
Lacerda, his political rival suffers an
assassination attempt and rapidly the
author of the crime is found: one of
Getúlio’s man. The opposition to his
government grows and it creates the
condition for his resignation. However,
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Getúlio surprises all by committing
suicide. The general commotion by his act
crushes the opposition, which lost its
popularity overnight.

A controversial character linked both to

communism and the developmentist
movement gains the Brazilian voters –
Juscelino Kubitschek. Interested in the
development of the interior of Brazil, JK,
as he was known, builds the new nation’s
capital in the central region of the
country, creating federal roads. JK kept
the country in an unusual political
stability, keeping an open dialogue with
the military, the right and the left wing.

His successor, Jânio Quadros, had the

same negotiator profile. But, with the
Cold War, USA and USSR were fighting
over the political influence in the South
American countries, spying them. When
Jânio Quadros was honoring the
Argentinian leader Ernesto Che Guevara,
he suffers a massive pressure from the
right wing and resigns, leaving the
presidency to his vice-president, João
Goulart – who was, at that moment at a
commercial mission in the Communist
China.

The military try to stop him from taking

power, but under the command of the
political leader Leonel Brizola, he
manages to negotiate João Goulart’s rise
to the presidency as long as the Brazilian
system changes to parliamentarianism.

With a strategic move, as soon as he

comes to power, instead of changing the

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Man wearing a military uniform. Proudly.
*The pau-de-arara (literally parrot’s
perch) was an instrument created and
disseminated in Brazil during the slavery
years. It became being used again during
the 1964 dictatorship.
It consists of an iron rod that is crossed
between the tied wrists and the back of
the knee and the two tables support the
rod, so the body of the tortured stays 20
to 30 cm above the ground.
This method is usually used with
complements: electric shocks, spanking
paddle and drowning.
The man takes the woman and puts her
system, João Goulart calls for a popular
plebiscite that throws down the system’s
change.
João Goulart takes up the defense for the
land reform.
The right wing political parties – whose
historical origin is the division of the
Brazilian land into Hereditary Captaincies
that were subdivided into huge
proslavery farms controlled by “colonels”
whose powers expand until they form the
milk and coffee producers oligarchies,
establishing an influence in the congress
by electing their representatives and
senators and president, always using the
armed forces to contain any kind of
dissidence – is joined by the US
government to contain, using weapons
and money, the advance of the
communist movement an no March 1st
1964, they restore the military regimen in
Brazil.
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on the pau-de-arara. When the torture
session begins, darkness.

The 70-year-old woman takes over the scenic space.

70-year-old woman – The military dictatorship that began in 1964

lasted 20 years until 1984. For 50 years, the dictatorship’s official
documents were kept secret, authorized by all democratic
governments since then. A substantial part of the Brazilian population
doesn’t even know that torture happened in Brazil.

When she took office of the Brazilian Presidency, Dilma Roussef – a

former left wing militant, who was persecuted and tortured by the
dictatorship – establishes the Truth Committee and she delivers those
documents to it. Until now, 475 deaths disappearances were
registered in the hands of the agents of the repression. Before its
completion in 2014, one of the Truth Committee’s missions is to tell
what the women who were against the regimen suffered.

The young militant, who was tortured, reappears as she did in the
first time. Both women are in the center of the scenic space. They
hug, side by side, now as in the Truth Committee.

20-year-old woman – When I arrived at the repression’s hiding

place, I was pregnant. They told me that a communist’s baby didn’t
deserve to be born. They ripped my clothes of in front of my
companion, who was already really injured from the torture and they
asked him if he wanted them to torture me. They told him it was up
to him. They threatened to torture me in front of him. Then, at a
certain moment, they put me on the “dragon’s chair”. There, I began
to bleed because of the shocks and lost my baby.

70-year-old woman – I sat on a stool with two of them

compressing me from both sides. I front of me, a guy sat on a chair.
He slapped me a lot and my head turned from one side to the other,
but I didn’t even feel it anymore, because one of the man who was
beside me wouldn’t stop to stroking me. He put his fingers in all my
orifices. It was so terrible that I asked, “Put me back in the pau de
arara!” But that man said, “No need. With me, she will come and
talk.”

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20-year-old woman – Everyone laughed. That night, if I had
means, I’d had tried to kill myself. I wasn’t able to hold myself from
vomiting, seeing that my torturer was ejaculating over my naked and
injured body.

70-year-old woman – In one of those days in prison, after being

exhaustingly tortured, I saw the door of the room open and my two
kids came in. It was the worst thing possible. I was tied up, naked on
the dragon’s chair and couldn’t even hold them. My daughter asked
me, “Mom, why are you blue?”

20-year-old woman – When I was arrested in 1971, I was only 22

years old and had a 22 month daughter. To force me to give
information about the political activities, the military left the girl
wearing only her diapers in the cold. She cried and the torturers
threatened to give her shocks.

70-year-old woman – It’s strange, I don’t remember almost

anything from those weeks, months. I’ve done therapy, but I can’t
recover those pieces of my life. This is what hurts more. Several
pieces of me and from my existence don’t belong to me; it stayed
with them, with the military.

Both women hold hands.

20-year-old woman – This play is dedicated to Gleise Nana, 33

years old, activist of the protests from June 2013 in Brazil. She’s a
theater director from the outskirts of the city and was killed in a
suspicious fire in her apartment after denouncing was being
threatened by a sergeant of Rio’s Military Police.

Darkness.

(writing in Brazil, between April and June 2014)

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