From Charenton Hospital to Mamacita’s cabaret: politics and dissident bodies in Bolsonaro’s Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the play Cabaré Sade (2018), created by the Cabaré Incoerente research group at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, as a cabaret-style reworking of Peter Weiss’s Marat-Sade. The production took place in the context of Brazil’s 2018 presidential elections, marked by the rise of the far right and the election of Jair Bolsonaro, the first military president since the dictatorship. The article describes the collaborative dramaturgical process that characterized the creation of the performance, emphasizing the insertion of new narratives that satirized extremist discourse and denounced the concrete effects of authoritarianism on dissident bodies. The analysis draws on theoretical contributions from political theatre in dialogue with recent studies on Brazilian cabaret. I argue that Cabaré Sade demonstrates the power of cabaret—especially in its Brazilian form—as a political and aesthetic device: a space where satire becomes social critique and vulnerability is transformed into resistance. More than reworking a classic of political theatre, the performance positions cabaret as a decolonial and transnational language of resistance against contemporary authoritarianism.