BIOGRAPHY
My name is Afonso Nilson Barbosa de Souza and I am a playwright, critic and theater researcher.
My work as playwright and theater critic has been very intense in Brazil. I am a member of the International Association of Theater Critics (IATC), which is affiliated to Unesco, and I collaborate with important theater-related newspapers, magazines and websites in Brazil. My first theater text was staged in 1998, and it won the best new writer award in the Theater Games hosted by Carlos Gomes Theater, in Blumenau / SC. Throughout the years, my texts were already reenacted more than 30 times by professional and amateur theater groups, as well as by students, besides being adapted for the big screen.
I had two theater text collections, and six short texts for theater students, published in 2017 (Letras Contemporâneas Publisihng House / E-galáxia), as well as the book Pequenos Monólogos para Mulheres (Small Monologues for Women) published in 2014 (Chiado Publisihng House / E-Galáxia). The texts in the two aforementioned collections have already been chosen for dozens of theatrical productions, dramatic readings and video adaptations, and they remain staged in Brazil and Portugal. I have also published many of my theater texts in relevant Brazilian theater magazines, besides experiencing some self-publishing.
My essay entitled O Ator Impuro (The Impure Actor) won the Ibero-American Contest of Theater Essays (CELCIT - Concurso Iberoamericano de Ensayos sobre Teatro) in 2015. The text was published in the Argentinian theater magazine of CELCIT - the institution promoting the event - and at the Brazilian website teatrojornal.com.br. The feedback from the publication of the text, even three years after the award, has been great. After the award, the text was shared thousands of times in social networks and at the website of the institution promoting the event. It also had great repercussion in specialized journals and was cited in several academic studies. The text remains unpublished in printed version.
I have a website (www.afonsonilson.com) in Portuguese, where you can get more information about my career and about different works I have been developing. It has links to the books, photos of staged texts and articles published in well-known websites and large newspapers.
PLAYS
SMARTS
A DRAMATIC COMEDY FOR TWO ACTRESSES
Smarts is a dramatic comedy for two actresses, in which the theme of resentment is exaggerated until the edge of violence. In the plot, the Madam, who is in plain physical and emotional decay, hopes to attend the release of an old lover's book. Odete, the humble and semi-illiterate maid, in an attempt to help the ‘woman’ to get ready for the event, finds herself coerced and insulted by the Madam, who is unable to accept the degeneracy of age and the errors of the past; thus, she lives the fullness of her resentment.
The unequal struggle between these women, and the intellectual and emotional discrepancy of the conflict, triggers dramatically comic situations. The excessive and wide-open harassment suffered by the maid contrasts with her tender understanding about the sufferings of the Madam. But her understanding and passivity will not last forever.
TATTOO
FEMALE THEATRICAL MONOLOGUE
The demonstrations of love and its lasting effects, sometimes lasting more than love itself. The nothing unusual story of a woman that loved more than was loved, believed more than the truths she heard, and who desired beyond the desire they had for her. With humor and rancor, a text about the resentment as a form of self-love.
BE CAREFUL NOT TO FALL IN LOVE
An overwhelming declaration of love. Understand the reasons why someone loves or stop loving you are always a mystery. How can we accept that our feelings are not corresponded in the same intensity? What can we do when, suddenly, we discovered that our love has been wasted? This is a text to be said looking directly to the eyes of whom deny love.