The Excluded in As confrarias (confraries), by Jorge Andrade

Abstract

The intent in this essay is not to find the master faculty of the playwright, but that of the drama As confrarias in the context of the Inconfidência Mineira in the end of the eighteenth century, which dramatizes the difference between what men are and what they wished to be. The text unveils the inhuman procedures by those who hold power, when they stigmatize differences of color, race, gender and profession in the social practice of that time. Arbitrary rule and violence stimulate atypical characters to fight for their rights and bury their dead. Tragic irony. Both the rights and the law are at the mercy of conflicting interpretations. The semantic value of the law and the rights acquire opposite meanings, when they appear in differing ideological and political contexts. As such interpretations are publicly opposed perplexity is planted in the hearts and minds of the audience. However, as they return to their daily life, the audience forgets all possible meanings that are latent in the play. The word of the playwright springs from a situation of non-strength. It doubts of the very existence of the author as such, as it asks: who talks about me when I speak, write, publish and unveil hidden passions and the nocturnal inclinations in the obverse of the signs.