Mean Streets Poet

Plínio Marcos was 22 when he wrote Barrela, his first play, in 1957. Fame, however, would only come in 1966 with Dois Perdidos numa Noite Suja, the crude-language tale of two men in a room acting as if they were in a boxing ring.

Elma Lia Nascimento

He never finished third grade, but this didn't prevent him from becoming Brazil's most important playwright besides Nélson Rodrigues. He had abandoned school unable to cope with the pressure from his teacher who forced him to write with his right hand even though he was left-handed. Plínio Marcos de Barros, who died from a heart attack at the age of 64, on November 19, created a world Brazilians weren't used to hearing about peopled by cynical and tough characters from the society's under-world: prostitutes, criminals, drug-addicts, and transvestites. The writer was diabetic and had undergone four bypasses in 1995. In August a stroke impaired his memory. He died in the Instituto do Coração of São Paulo's Hospital das Clínicas.

Born on October 29, 1935, in a lower middle-class family in the coastal city of Santos, state of São Paulo, Plínio Marcos had a series of odd jobs before and after becoming a celebrated author. He was a clown known as Frajola (Tricky), a soccer player at Portuguesa Santista, a soldier, peon, and handyman. He confessed being as a child "envious of the clown's power of seduction over women." He admits, however, the job of street peddler was the only one he did with proficiency.

The playwright was 22 when he wrote Barrela in 1957. It was his first play, which was first staged in 1959. Barrela, a story inside a jail, was made into a movie and is being shown now at the Teatro de Arena in São Paulo. Fame would come in 1966 with Dois Perdidos numa Noite Suja (Two Lost Men on a Dirty Night), the crude-language tale of two men in a room acting as if they were in a boxing ring.

His most staged play, Navalha na Carne (Razor in the Flesh), appeared in 1967. Its crude language and story about a prostitute and her masochistic relationship with her gigolo irked the censors who forbid the play to be shown. Reporting to his chief, one censor wrote that he had found a "profusion of obscene sequences, dirty terms, anomalies and morbidity." The text was only exonerated by the intercession of respected actress Tônia Carrero, who argued, "If I am doing the play it cannot be pornographic."

Neville de Almeida adapted Navalha to the cinema in 1997 with actress Vera Fisher getting the juicy part of Neusa Sueli, the story's prostitute. Tônia Carrero once again was praising Plínio after his death: "He deserves all the honors of a great author, which he is and always will be. Few people wrote as well as he did. Nélson Rodrigues had a broader view and Plínio was more local. No one better than him knew how to describe the poor of Brazil.

During the '80s, although his plays continued to be performed, Plínio Marcos used to sell makeshift editions of his own plays to survive. He also started to read Tarot cards—something he learned during his stint in the circus. The author received his clients at his single flat in the Copan building, in downtown São Paulo, where he lived for two decades. The bohemian and prostitution area was the favorite for his plays. For many years he was a mascot of plushy restaurant Gigetto, where he could drink and eat without paying.

Only in the last two years, his wife, journalist Vera Artaxo, convinced him to move to a bigger apartment in the exclusive neighborhood of Higienópolis, the same are in which President Fernando Henrique Cardoso owns an apartment. He also started to dress a little nicer after years of walking the streets like a bum. Plínio Marcos was able to buy his apartment only because writer Márcio de Souza, as president of Funarte (a foundation dedicated to promote art) acquired the copyrights of his work for a ten-year period. The playwright had three children with his first wife Walderez de Barros, one of whom is actor and writer Léo Lama.

Plínio Marcos wrote more than 40 plays as well as novels and short stories. Brazzil published an excerpt of his novel, O Assassinato do Anão, in August 1998 (http://www.brazzil.com/shoaug98.htm). All of them had a problem with the censors and Plínio Marcos was jailed several times because of his writing. Barrela, the first play he wrote, for example, was only released in 1980, like most of other works written in '60s and '70s. Plínio was already 32 when his first play was staged. It was Dois Perdidos numa Noite Suja. But after a few presentations it was also closed down by the military censorship. The author was often confused with the characters he created and the image he himself portrayed in interviews. While he used to call himself an illiterate, Plínio Marcos was a self-educated man who devoured books.

His most famous plays:

Barrela (1958): The action based on a true story happens inside a prison. After being raped by his cellmates a young man kills one by one all of the rapists.

Dois Perdidos numa Noite Suja (1966): The two lost souls in a dirty night are Paco and Tonho. The first resigned to be a criminal, the latter struggling to be an honest person.

Navalha na Carne (1967): The love and hate relationship between a prostitute, her violent gigolo and a homosexual.

Abajur Lilás (Lilac Lampshade) (1975): Giro is a homosexual sadist and Dilma, a prostitute, whose young son is a prude. The action is set in a whorehouse.

A Dança Final (The Final Dance) (1994): At their 25^th wedding anniversary a husband notices that he has become impotent.

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