my soul is immoral and impure
but  the body is mine
pure furious
I do whatever
 
she doesn't transgress
just disobeys
goes to a side
I go to another
 
the soul leaves and strolls for
waterfall and green pine mountains
smells sunflowers
afterwards she comes
to tell me her secrets
sharing her happiness
 
with envy
 I arrest her under delicacy
 
the soul attacks
does not transgress, Clarice
you got it clearly
two phonetically imperfect words
 
the soul is not pure, Clarice
is immoral and made of
resistant steel on which
all your dramatic action
has been done
 
your immoral soul
has changed the day after
sweeps the night
has opened Pandora's box,
finally.

Clarice Niskier's play "A Alma Imoral" has given me such important feelings: the poem above, a marvelous actress, Nilton Bonder's book. All of them are feelings of concrete things – the poem, the actress, the book. The play is a generous act of giving, without fear or censure.

A casual meeting on a TV show with the writer and Nilton Bonder introduced Clarice to the book "A Alma Imoral". The play started really at that first meeting.

And we can also say that a new book had started on that day – the writing and the reading are two tracks. Clarice's strong acting work has contributed to the reading process of the book. The words, the actress and the reader will never be the same.

But what is that 'Immoral Soul' about? As Nilton Bonder explains in the program text of the play: "(...) the text is about the sacred and the sacred opposite, about the ethereal soul, the thought and the words, whose oppositional holy is the body and the gesture. Who are moral or immoral we notice through the eyes, in the retina that inverts images and allows us to interpret the world, to see it."

All of that is being read on the stage, a reading full of sighs and  silence, whisperings and easy smirks. Readers in audience's masks, reading the reading of an actress. What a great experience it is when the action, the voice and the body are really unique and truly moment of a word creation.

The play provokes, and this provocation leads us to a strange uncomfortable feeling. It is an  invitation to the connections between body and soul, the total of life which is endless.

And Clarice Niskier has chosen this text at the moment she celebrates 25 years of  her career. She is totally contemporary doing so: an actress who knows not only how but WHAT to say; who chooses her way, adapting, directing, working on the disorder of her own landscapes.

Clarice adapted and staged it herself, supervised by the director, Amir Haddad. It is her third playwrighting work, the previous ones were "Buda" and "Mulheres de 40", both  directed by Domingos de Oliveira.

I proposed some questions in my own way to Clarice Niskier about her reading and her stage process of  "A Alma Imoral".

Clarice, how did you find this book "A Alma Imoral"?

It was on a TV show.  I was invited to talk about a play I was performing. There were several guests. Nilton Bonder was one of them. When the program finished, I went to talk to him. I was  delighted with his interview. He gave me the book, "A Alma Imoral", as a gift. I read it and I tell you sincerely, for me, this is one of the best books I had ever read in my life. It is a very courageous book.  It deals with difficult things, straight ahead.  It is a deep, honest, courageous work.  By the way, how that book came to me is in the prologue of the play. 

How has that book touched you? How have you touched it? 

As I said before, this year is the 25th anniversary of my career. There are more or less thirty-five plays in my experience. I don't like counting them, but it is a really significant number. I should say to myself I didn't  begin yesterday. So, when my heart felt the staging that text, I've listened to it. When the heart of an actress beats to a text, she should listen it truthfully. Even if, in the beginning, it seems insanity without any precedents. I have always considered theatre a risk. And take that risk is a transgressive action itself. But, even so, one can be accommodated within the known limits. I wanted to go beyond mine. It was necessary to face this challenge. It was necessary to adapt this text alone and make myself responsible for the conception of the play. I needed to do that as I needed the air I breathe.  I do not know how to explain that. I just know that from time to time I should take risks like that. Without it, I don't know, it seems that I will not have enough air to live.

What is your play "A Alma Imoral" made of?

My play is made indeed of feelings. About understanding, about this one conversation from a very sincere point inside of me, so that, the play has no character, it is me, myself, on stage.

What are you receiving from the play? People leave the theatre in such a poetic mood like me?

The play was very well received. There was as deep an understanding of the work, on the part of the public as the reviewers. People buy their tickets, sit down on the ground, they don't care. I see the transformation of people in the audience.  It is incredible to hear the silence that comes from the audience, a deep silence, alive, sorry for this expression, but sometimes, an almost- cosmic-silence. Am I exaggerating? And the audience laughs, cries, and thanks me. What I have received from that play is an enormous possibility of growth.

The play is based on a philosophical text that you transformed into something absolutely accessible and spontaneous.  What was the process  of approaching and adapting Nilton Bonder's text? Did you suffer a lot? 

I suffered, in the good meaning of the word.  Yes, there is indeed a "good" suffering.  That was a work full of hope, hard work, but full of certainties. I was sure about the value of that work.  It was worth spending hours and hours on those pages, transforming the text to a text for theatre.  This year I celebrate 25 years on the stage. I performed a solo play on Clarice Lispector's literary work, directed by Eduardo Wotzik,. That was a successful play. I've worked with Domingos de Oliveira on playwrighting creation  Under his supervision I wrote the solo play  "Buda".  So, with that experience and much enthusiasm for Nilton's text I started adapting the text with affection and no hurry. After the first draft was done, I held  several readings in my friends house, in bookstores, theatres, etc and the conversations were very important to the theatrical synthesis. The draft which is on stage today is the fifteenth. I read all Nilton Bonder's  books. I got deeply into his thought. And Amir Haddad's directing supervision made me very happy because he respected my feelings as an actress and in doing so the play just came up, quite naturally.

Is there any possibility to see you in "A Alma Imoral" again?

Yes, we will start a second season of the play at Teatro Leblom, on August  29.  I will be there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, at 9pm, for two months. I plan to perform somewhere else afterwards.

And afterwards, Clarice?

I have lots of future projects. I've learned in  "A alma Imoral" that there is no transgression if there is no hope towards for the future.  Our darkness is lightened  through our human hope. Some want to steal  the idea of future.from us  They want to make us believe there is no more future.  The threats are terrible: potable water shortage, global heating, hunger and misery on the planet.  Everything will cost  R$1,00 and have no durability. There will be proper food only for the clones. Finally, they want to impose us a world without exit. I don't buy this idea. Even knowing that those threats are real, I am humanizing me and transforming me more and more.  I am sensibilizing myself, seeking knowledge more and more.  We should find exits.  And I think that "A alma imoral" is one of the exits I have found.

A ALMA IMORAL

Text: Nilton Bonder
Adaptation and acting: Clarice Niskier
Directing supervisor: Amir Haddad
Costume: Kika Lopes
Light Design: Aurélio de Simoni
Musical direction: José Maria Braga
Vocal preparation: Célio Rentroya
Body Preparation: Márcia Feijo
Production Direction: Celso Lemos
Publicist: João Pontes and Stella Stephany
 
AT Teatro do Leblon(Rua Conde de Bernadotte, 26 / Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, PH  21 2294-0347)  
FROM August 29 to November 1  
ON Tuesdays and Wednesday at 9PM