When I read Brazilian writer, editor and journalist Emilio Fraia's short story 'Sevastopol', published in The New Yorker on December 9, 2019, I felt many emotions for all my friends who've chosen to work in books and theatre.
No I don't feel sorry for them. By now, they aren't exactly struggling playwrights, writers or actors. Those who've given up, have left the industry. Those who are still there, have come a long way. Most of them hold other part-time or full-time jobs. In Singapore, one can't just be a writer or a theatre practitioner and have that income pay the bills. I feel quite a bit of admiration for their chosen careers and passions. It's not an easy path to take in Singapore.
Translated from Portuguese by Zöe Perry, 'Sevastopol' is set in the underground theatre world of São Paulo, Brazil, where co-protagonist semi-successful aging playwright and director Klaus hangs out. He pairs up with Nadia, a seemingly lost young woman who's trying to sort out her life and wants to be a maybe writer in theatre to put on a play. The two stories they were separately writing and working on when they met tells us how different they are. IMHO, the play Klaus is writing about a fictional Bogdan Trunov the Russian painter who lived in Simferopol that is next to Sevastopol in the mid-1800s sounds like a train wreck; the story about the mysterious relationship between the eponymous fictional Nadia and Sasha that actual writer co-protagonist Nadia is working on seems to pan out cluelessly like the story of her life and her ex-boyfriend.
These are stories within a story, and it's like how everyone lives our lives. It's evenly paced, and almost boring. And I liked it. The author has managed to draw out how all of us have felt at some point in our lives while choosing what to do and where to go. To me, who you date is almost as important as what you are, because you will be influenced by your date, and even more so, your partner. Your partner should complement you, not bring out the worst in you and aid you in a downward spiral or completely lend zero inspiration to your life.
At the end of 'Sevastopol', Klaus, who has broken up with Nadia and left to dunno where, seems to not have much going on for him already. He can't seem to write better stories or put on better plays. Or choose better actors. I think Nadia learnt something from this relationship and theatre project, and being younger, could adapt and grow. I hope so. It's not explicitly said, and that's the beauty of this story.
We débuted two months later. The play was a flop. Everything sounded fake. The script didn’t work. Nothing worked.
The actor Klaus picked, another strapping, angel-faced young man fresh out of some crummy drama school, was dumb as a post. He couldn’t understand a word he was saying. The actor who played the soldier was a little better, but he wasn’t convincing, either. The lighting was great until halfway through the show, when everything went haywire. My parents made the trip into the city, and at the end of the performance I think they just felt sorry for me, because my dad took out his wallet and handed me two hundred reals. “Don’t forget to eat right, dear.”
During the month the play ran, the audiences who used to come to the squat to see gigs and poetry slams—poems with positive messages that spoke of love and trauma, loss and abuse, strength and overcoming—simply evaporated. We weren’t able to renew the contract with the folks who ran the cultural program there, and we buried the story of our play.
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