Amanda C. Figueredo
This research is part of a larger set of studies (including an ongoing master’s thesys) that revolves around the theatrical reception of the play The Gospel According To Jesus Queen Of Heaven when it was staged in an event promoted by the Federal University of Santa Catarina in 2018. In this paper some of the perceptions on the play will be reported and analyzed after my own subjective experience of watching the production – which led the transvesti actress, Renata Carvalho, to play the character of Jesus as the daughter of God. In this analysis I emphasize the value of the theatrical event produced by the play, as theorized by Jorge Dubatti, considering the encounter of the poetic bodies with those who watch them, from the mise-em-scène to the audience, both on themselves and by their relations. However I also show the event to the extent of its ability to break with the normal state of things and widen the horizon with new possibilities for public policies, as understood by Alain Badiou. Both of these understandings of events have strucken me as I watched the play and only through this I could notice the reality of being a cisgender woman and how I perceive society in a cisgender way, a way that is by definition fixed and excludent, and confront this with the isues raised by the Travesti Gospel, such as the absence of trans bodies on Brazilian stages and the need for representation of these bodies in all cultural environments. The goal here is to draw parallels between the event and trans power when they represent themselves in theater, because representativity is, according to MONART (Portuguese acronym for National Movement of Trans Artists) is the act of being present. Through the creation of conditions for this presence, these bodies will be able to be seen without being violated in their right to come and go as they please, taking their rightful place of citizenship and recognition of their identities in Brazil.
Keywords: Theater play; Reception; Event; Trans Representation.