Resumo:
From an urban provocation arises the questioning about the typical character in the
national dramaturgy. Is there such an interlocutor, capable of giving an identity to the
theatrical production of a model to be replicated? The research proposes to answer the
question through an extensive literary deepening, searching from the first records until
the disappearance of such a character. The malandro is the center of this dissertation and
its entire trajectory from its emergence in an Iberian Peninsula to its perfect insertion in
the tropics. Co-opted by Brazilian behavior, its diffusion will be widely addressed by
theater and literature. Through records of his circulation, two cities are identified as
being occupied by his figure. Namely, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, cities where this
investigation is applied through everyday observation and bohemian insertion. The
occupation of two coastal towns with different behaviors bequeaths the port region to
the malandro, where all his possibilities for action take place in excellence. Understood
as a person at first, his transformation into a character is inherent in his popular
imagination. Gaining the nickname of an adjective, malandragem is narrated in models
that become classics in literature, taking to the stages according to the social
transformation of the streets. As an urban chronicle, the produced dramaturgies insert
the malandro as a provocateur of conflicts and articulator, oblivious to a Manichean
balance. Observing political variations, the malandro transforms and adapts to maintain
his existence. Faced with the examples of different authors, we perceive the decline of
the character until his definitive disappearance. Proving to be the typical representative
of national dramaturgy, two examples are cited to suggest a model of malandragem
understood between the acting environments. Namely, public and private become the
spheres where the characters Vadinho by Jorge Amado and Max Overseas by Chico
Buarque perpetuate the archetypal conduct, justifying all the deepening of this research.
