The Grupo de Teatro VIDA is a Bloomington-based theater project that puts together Spanish and Portuguese plays every fall semester. This weekend VIDA performed the plays that were developed this year at the Bloomington Playwrights Project. The presentation consisted of four plays, one in Portuguese and three in Spanish.
The letters in the group’s name stand for vision, identity drama and art, and according to its website, the project’s main goal is to produce plays that promote cultural understanding and the richness of Hispanic and Lusophone cultures through live theater. The group allows students to practice the languages, to be immersed in the culture through theater and to engage with native speakers during the process.
The theme for this year’s plays was acontecimientos extraños, or weird happenings. Alysa Schroff, VIDA president and doctoral student at IU, said the theme-choosing moment comes after the plays are chosen.
“It turns out it’s more fun that way, when the directors choose what they want to direct,” she said. “For that reason, I can’t always favor the theme over the plays. I guess I just noticed that each play has something a bit strange about it.”
This year’s only Portuguese-language production, “Os Saltimbancos,” is a musical and was written originally by the Brazilian artist Chico Buarque. Inspired by the Brothers Grimm story “Town Musicians of Bremen,” the adaptation depicts four farm animals — a chicken, a donkey, a cat and a dog — that are tired of being abused by their owners and decide to go to the city to become musicians.
This weekend marked the second time that IU junior Stephen Gervase, who plays the donkey, worked in a production for VIDA.
“I worked with Grupo VIDA for the first time last year, which was my first experience acting and working on a play production,” Gervase said. “I’ve grown by learning to work well with a team and developing problem solving skills.”
The other plays performed were “La Distancia,” which tells of a couple in a broken marriage; “Los degolladores de Estatuas,” a tale of dolls that revolt against their owners; and “Se Vende una Mula,” which is about a communication failure between a man that is trying to sell a mule and gets his daughter engaged.
While many of the project’s members are IU students and faculty, it is not closed to other contributors. Joe Ermey, a sophomore at Bloomington High School South, has also participated twice in VIDA’s performances. He said it is much more difficult to sing in Portuguese than to speak it but the hard work is really worth it.
“I met new Portuguese speakers and have a new avenue through which I can speak Portuguese,” he said.
Schroff said the project helps students develop their communication skills in the language. Practicing pronunciation and enunciation helps the students work on their vocabulary and grammar.
“I think that through the process of memorizing lines, we begin to internalize grammar structures and learn vocabulary — words that you might not have learned from your textbook or even from the experiences you might have speaking Spanish outside of the classroom,” she said.
The participants all agreed that the group creates a rare opportunity to practice the languages while interacting with the cultures.
“My advice for those would like to join the Portuguese productions is to be flexible,” Ermey said. “If there’s one thing Brazilians aren’t, it’s formal.”
