Wanderlino
Arruda
It’s
necessary to always discover the pleasant and
noble side of every moment of our lives. Chasing
happiness is an obligation and the search in
itself should be enough reason to make us happy.
That’s what happens to me every time that
I walk into the entrance hall at the national
Theater in Brasilia, D.F., when I walk down
the luxurious velvet ramp and see the majestic
auditorium, that monumental collection, that
only the legendario Oscar Niemeyer could have
imagined and realized. To go to the National
Theater offers me a gratifying pleasure, a good
reason for happiness. That was the sensation
that I felt when Dagmar, Anderson and I met
our work team from the Brasil Bank, before,
during and after the presentation of Bibi Ferreira
in her piece Piaf, truly, a dream of a presentation.
It was when we sat down, right in front of the
stage, in a good-sized group composed of Iasbeck,
Riza, Carlos Hetch and Carmen seeing on the
other side, good work collegues, having as the
main thing in half the auditorium, the sophisticated
charm and beauty of Angela Momm.
It’s
funny that in the whole auditorium, the predominating
color was red, a really strong, living and flaming
crimson. Among us, and very happy, with a red
dress, shoes and bag, was Ivone, a strikingly
lovely collegue of ours. Iria, even happier,
with a shocking-pink dress, that in the evening
light, no one could tell that it wasn’t
red also. Valquiria, Daniel, Eduardo, Roberto,
Cardenas, all in red shirts. Carlos, I don’t
quite remember, also in various details in red.
When the stage lights come on, The background,
an intense, volcanic red, of course, as brilliant
as fireworks above a battlefield, forming a
conjunto of reddish spotlights that illuminated
Bibi during the entire presentation. In contrast,
as in a French romance, the black of the formal
clothing and the poor, which at first, horrified
the conscience and sight of the audience. To
compor, at our side, the blackness of the shirt
of the very well behaved Moacir. From this point
on, our only colors were black and red.
The
voice of Bibi Ferreira, her magnetic presence
and gestures, a pessimism, the hard side of
life that she made us feel with her tiny and
delicate motions, exploding all the time. Her
frail wispy body, without any touch of beauty,
everything marking the soul of Edith Piaf. It
was Piaf, pure Piaf, with a modern vision, was
really like being in the presence of Edith herself.
Alias, more that this: both of them resemble
each other and seem to be almost the same person.
Both very famous, visibly marked by age, with
the physical desgaste that artistic life endows
and instigates with. Her voice, in the beginning,
tiny, as if asking for permission to exist,
suddenly grows, climbing and fills the entire
auditorium and keeps building up, gaining weight,
involving, clean, to an admirable crescendo,
like she represented the whole force and sonority
of eternal France. It’s like you were
transported to the boisterous cabarets of Paris,
no Olympia, the top of glory of all art, much
more than the Carnegie hall, or any other theater
in the world, including the National Theater
of Brasilia in which we find ourselves.
Listening
to Bibi is like watching Piaf and I am spiritually
transported in a sweet remembrance to Parisian
streets, squares, monuments, museums and boulevards,
( at that moment I wasn’t in Brasil, I
was in Paris.) I felt, in the accordion, and
the background music, in that culture, a taste
of sensibility that the French do with such
love. I see myself at the top of the Eiffel
Tower, at the Arc of Triumph, at the Place de
la Concorde, at the Pigale, at the Notre dame,
the French theaters, the Louvre, or drifting
along in a bateau mouche in the Sena, or in
my modest hotel for travelers, lonely and happy.
I see myself running in the cold enchanted with
the colorido of the lights, of the news stands,
fruit stands full of red fruits, and the brilho
of the restaurants and cafés…ah,
the cafés…I see myself also in
the happiness of the children and the thin elegance
of the women. A marvelous world of types and
varieties with clothes that all, Frenchmen and
foreigners alike, stroll through the streets
and gardens. I imagine and it all unfolds in
my mind!
After all this that I see and dream, I emotionally
thank the art of Bibi and the opportunity to
be there, in Brasilia. There is nothing better
than, being in a beautiful new capital city
and living moments in the glorious old Paris.
