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Virgínias
Virginia Woolf is in Virgínias, the most recent production by Teatro de Frente with Anneli Olijum and Andrea Azevedo who also directs the play.
Teatro de Frente is a research group which investigates world authors to stage them, getting audiences closer to their literature and to the scene. The group works with Theatre
Anthropology, by Eugenio Barba, where the actor is the responsible and individual creator of his/her work. The direction works on the performance's intention, but the actor's work is more thorough.
After reading Virginia Woolf's biography, the director Andrea Azevedo was haunted by a question: what made her give up? To answer that Andrea had to build the play.
The play's structure is non-linear (it couldn't be otherwise). It is a result of readings and actor's training dealing with their own psychology, individually and then collectively, when
trying to answer: why is that important to me? What do I want to say about that?
Then when the actresses went to the stage they proposed what Virginia Woolf said to them, but "at that point they were all contaminated by her madness",
Andrea confesses. The director's role was to reveal what in actor' work was really attached to Woolf's literary creation.
 Andrea Azevedo and Anneli Olijum in Virgínias
But what made Virginia give up? "She didn't find a place", Andrea
says, "she couldn't find a way to be woman and artist at the same time and at the same level".
This is Andrea's answer, but the play did not try to find answers. The Virgínias is inspired by the search that the writer had pursued in her
literature: the attempt to concentrate everything. The actresses search that concentration in narration, dance, theatre, realism, expressionism, plurality.
There are no commas in the several faces of the drama. The woman that slowly gave up, the literature that never quit, both are definitely attached to life at all corners.
The Party of Books
The XIIth Rio de Janeiro International Book Fair has proved to be more than books. It is a great event: two weeks, May 12 to 22, of
meeting with Brazilian and foreign authors, children's book and events, RPG games, literary conferences, theatre, and even book- sellers. This Fair became a huge happening: 230 Brazilian writers, 24
international writers, including Tom Wolfe, who did the opening conference, and the 16 French writers, in honor of France, the featured country.
The Rio de Janeiro International Book Fair has had twenty two years of a successful business and cultural partnership. It began in 1983, at
the conference rooms of the Copacabana Palace Hotel. Two years later the event was transferred to the São Conrado Fashion Mall. In 1987 the Book Fair moved to Riocentro. The 2005 Book Fair covered
55,000 square meters divided in three colored pavilions.
Almost every segment of society was there, not only intellectuals, teachers,and university students, but also housewives, youngsters,
mommies with children, family entertainment in a weekend.  
Chico Caruso and João Ubaldo Ribeiro Storytelling for children
This is really spectacular because Brazil is not a country with a
tradition in reading.
No matter what a person's reading interest, what's most important is the routine of reading itself. This could be a starting point for a more
conscious and educated society, but only a starting point.
The Book Fair is a party, and like every party it has an end and everything is going to be normal again on the day after. Actually,
books are luxury items − people cannot afford them. Not every child in Brazil studies in a school which has a library, or has the chance to join
reading educational programs. But when we come to the Fair it seems that we live in another country. In Brazil books are not everywhere for everybody.
Congratulations to the Rio de Janeiro International Book Fair and we hope that some day the book party never ends.
Virgínias
Direction and playwrighting: Andréa Azevedo
Cast: Andréa Azevedo and Anneli Olljum
Production: Teatro de Frente
July 15-31, 2005
Thursdays to Sundays
At Teatro Sérgio Porto
Rio de Janeiro
Rua Humaitá 163 – PH: 2266- 0896
Email: teatrodefrente@yahoo.com.br
XII Rio de Janeiro International Book Fair
www.bienaldolivro.com.br
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