Palcos do império : o teatro português em Angola durante o estado novo (1930-1950)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the presence of Portuguese theater in Angola during António de Oliveira Salazar’s New Estate (Estado Novo), through the analysis of theatrical plays that were performed on Angolan stages between the 1930s and the 1950s by Portuguese theater companies, that during these period departed from the metropolis towards Africa on a tour of the portuguese colonies. In addition to the theatrical text, our main object of analysis, we work with an extensive range of historical sources, such as show programs and posters, newspapers, correspondences, official letters, photographs and official documents, digitalized in Portuguese archives, such as the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, the Museu Nacional do Teatro e da Dança, and the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, in order to understand the relational dynamics operationalized between the Portuguese theater and the Salazar’s regime in Angola during the three phases of the history of these itinerances. In the light of the theoretical and methodological references of the Global History of Theater, we intend to demonstrate that between 1932 and 1959, seventeen portuguese theater companies promoted tours to the African continent, presenting 153 plays on Angolan stages, tracing a mutual and constant dialogue with the regime, in which they brought to the stages images and characters that legitimized the most cherished values of Salazar’s ideology and that promoted the maintenance of colonial power in Angola, exporting a specific theatrical model overseas, essentially nationalist, ruralist, traditionalist and colonialist