Renata Pallottini

Renata Pallottini or Renata Monachesi Pallottini (São Paulo, January 20, 1931 – São Paulo, July 8, 2021) was a Brazilian playwright, essayist, poet, theater professor and translator.

She was an award-winning author of poetry, plays, essays, fiction, children's literature, theater theory, and television programs who was notable in the Brazilian literary and theater scenes.

In a considerable part of her production, it is possible to identify the questioning and the combat against the social values that delimitated the woman's role in society.

As a writer, she published her first texts in the 1950s, in the student newspapers of the Law School (USP).

In 1951, she graduated in pure Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) and, in 1953, she completed her bachelor's degree at the Law School of the University of São Paulo (FDUSP).

In this period she also published her first book of poems, Acalanto (1952), printed at Pallottini's family printing house.

Renata received a scholarship from the Spanish government and entered the University of Madrid to study Spanish Culture, between 1959 and 1960.

During this period she also attended the History of Spanish Art and Literature course at the Institute of Hispanic Culture (ICH).

Renata Pallottini established her name in the history of Brazilian theater as the first woman to attend the Dramaturgy course at the School of Dramatic Arts at the University of São Paulo and the first to write for the theater in the 1960s in São Paulo.

With an innovative performance, she brought a textual proposal different from what was being done in São Paulo in the theatrical field, which culminated in her identification as a member of the new dramaturgy, a group formed by playwrights who were new to the city of São Paulo and who, in the 1960s and 1970s, promoted transformations in the theater.

She was the author of the first Brazilian theater production - A Lâmpada (1960) - that dealt with the theme of homosexuality.

With an intense production, Renata transited through the Arts and Literature with mastery and creativity, having her work marked by a certain performativity, a trait that comes from her relationship with theater.

In addition, she also held political and administrative positions in the theatrical sphere.

Pallottini died at the age of 90, as a result of multiple myeloma.

She wrote for the theater since the early 1960s, being A Lâmpada (1961), Sarapalha (1962) and O Crime da Cabra (1965) her first works, having developed intense theatrical activity throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Her works were produced by important directors such as Silnei Siqueira, Ademar Guerra, José Rubens Siqueira, Marcia Abujamra, Gabriel Vilela, among others.

Luís Alberto de Abreu and Jacó Guinsburg argue that she:"Blossomed in the great Sao Paulo generation of the 1960s that brought renewal to the contemporary scene, inserted theater as the vanguard in the broad political and cultural movement that characterized the period and decisively marked later generations."For television, Renata Pallottini has worked as a script writer for soap operas and series.

Despite her intense activity in theater, TV and as a teacher, it was in poetry that Renata Pallottini found her richest and most fertile ground.

Renata Pallottini is an important name in the history of contemporary Brazilian female dramaturgy, as she was the first woman to attend the Dramaturgy course at EAD/USP and the first to write for theater in São Paulo in the 1960s.

Back to Brazil, between 1961 and 1962, she studied Dramaturgy and criticism at the School of Dramatic Art (EAD) at the University of São Paulo (USP), having among her teachers Anatol Rosenfeld, Décio de Almeida Prado, Augusto Boal and Alfredo Mesquita.

Invited by Sábato Magaldi to replace him in 1964, Renata Pallotini started to work as a teacher at School of Dramatic Art (EAD), teaching the History of the Brazilian Theatre.

In her teaching career, she has taught at EAD and also at the Department of Performing Arts (CAC) of the School of Communications and Arts, contributing to the training of several generations of actors and researchers in the area of theater.

She has also adapted and translated literary works for the theater, among them O Escorpião de Numância (1968) based on Miguel de Cervantes' Cerco de Numancia; translated the musical Hair, by James Rado and Gerome Ragni; translated and adapted the novel Cidades Invisíveis, by Italo Calvino.

The multiplicity of themes and landscapes is one of the characteristics of her work as a playwright.

She was president of the State Commission of Theater of the Secretariat of Culture (CET), succeeding Cacilda Becker (1969–1970), founder and first president of the São Paulo Association of Theatrical Authors (APART), and president of the Brazilian Center of Theater, affiliated to the International Theatre Institute (ITI/UNESCO).

She is among the playwrights who project themselves around 1969, being part of the group that formed the new generation of women theater writers along with Hilda Hilst, Leilah Assumpção, Consuelo de Castro, Isabel Câmara.

Her first novel, Mate é a cor da vivez, was published in 1975 and, according to Lygia Fagundes Telles, is "a beautiful and courageous book".

A decade later, she published her first children's book, Tita, a Poeta.

Renata also held political and administrative positions.

She finished her doctorate in 1982 at the School of Communications and Arts (ECA) at the University of São Paulo (USP), under the guidance of Sábato Magaldi.

Her thesis deals with dramaturgy and also includes O País do Sol, an original play that Pallotini wrote for the theater and that would become the first work of her trilogy about Italian immigration in Brazil, together with Colônia Cecília and Tarantella plays.

The theoretical part of her thesis resulted in the book Introdução à dramaturgia.

Elza Cunha de Vicenzo, in her book Um Teatro da Mulher (1992), affirms that after 1969, in Brazil, women playwrights began to reveal themselves in significant numbers, making up a larger group of first time playwrights that came to be known as the group of the new dramaturgy, which can be characterized by presenting a type of text and textual proposal diverse - in various aspects - from what had been done in the theater in São Paulo.

In 2012, she received the title of professor emeritus from the same institution.

She has given courses and lectures in institutions in several countries such as Cuba, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Peru.

She was an award-winning author who wrote poetry, essays, fiction, theater theory, children's literature, and television programs, as well as several translations.

In many of her works, it is possible to identify a questioning and combative position towards the values that demarcated the role of women in society.

Pallottini was also part of entities linked to the literary class such as the Brazilian Union of Writers, the PENclub of Brazil and the Poetry Club of São Paulo and, as of 2013, she joined the Academy of Literature of São Paulo, occupying the 20th chair.

As a Corinthians fan, Renata has dedicated some of her works to the sports club of her heart, including Melodrama, O Dia em que o Corinthians foi Campeão, Onze contra Onze and O Corinthiano.

Renata Pallottini died on July 8, 2021, at Santa Catarina Hospital, in São Paulo, at the age of 90, of multiple myeloma.