excerpt
Ali, A-L-I, the same three letters in my name. Seeing or hearing me, he’ll know to say: I would rather love you than anything. With him, I will never think of the clock. Whether it’s day or night matters little to me. The lover – to transport myself away with him, to go to some other place, to picture, by imagining, all the colors of the white foam of the sea. We will reach the Far East, hear the lute while drinking mint tea. With Ali, I will enter paradise smoking opium, cross the continents, brave the high seas, and then return to port.
synopsis
A paixão de Lia is a work of fiction in which feminine desire is expressed poetically. The story of Lia is that of her fantasy, of her journey from one situation to another in which, through imagination, she fulfills her desires.
Each situation corresponds to a pledge made by the character. The first is that of finding a lover, the ideal.
The second, finding in a bordello the simulation of the ideal lover. The third, being a courtesan.
The fourth, being a lesbian, and the fifth, being a mother. Five vows in five chapters: My Man, The Brothel, The Courtesan, Lesbos, and Ave, Maria!
The protagonist’s erotic monologue is a journey in which we hear both Lia’s voice and the female voices in which she envelops herself – Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf. The reader travels hearing and transporting himself to the places Lia dreams about: Paris, Buenos Aires, New York…
In this text, the heroine gives scant importance to sexual gratification and says that even in the brothel the only requisite should be pleasure. What interests her is the dreamed-of sex, and this is why Betty Milan, evoking Fernando Pessoa, says in the introduction that “on earth it is as necessary to dream as to navigate.”
The play is in five acts and was written for three actors: a woman in the role of Lia, a man embodying “The Voice,” and a boy in the role of the son.
history
After the publication of A paixão de Lia by Editora Globo in 1994, Betty Milan adapted the novel for the theater. The play was read by the actress Giulia Gam and the actor and director José Celso Martinez Corrêa in the auditorium of the Folha de S. Paulo on February 26, 2002, directed by José Celso himself.
opinion
“…Lia flies far… touches profoundly.”
Folha de S. Paulo, February 2002