Based on the cordel by Erotildes Miranda, the play tells the story of three American astronauts who, with the Pope’s blessings, embark on an ambitious journey to the Moon and there encounter Saint George, the “warrior saint,” who, sustained by the forces of nature, inhabits the lunar territory.
The Saint reprimands them, saying that everything they need has always been around them and that greed and the unrestrained pursuit of power lead only to destruction. In their quest for the heavens, they only distanced themselves from what they already had—the Earth. The astronauts try to rebel but are driven away by Saint George and “his fine steed.” Defeated, they return to Earth and are welcomed with honor and glory, as heroes. Meanwhile, Saint George goes into quarantine because the invaders had contaminated the Moon with a virus.
In the concept created by Tá na Rua, in this battle, the Saint is alternately Saint George and Ogum, the Orisha of war.
Cordéis
The cordéis have been part of the Tá na Rua group’s repertoire since its inception. The texts were originally worked on by the Teatro Livre da Bahia group (1968) in Salvador (BA), under the direction of João Augusto Azevedo, who made small adaptations to cordel texts by various authors to use them as dramatic texts in their street performances (Souza, 1993). A copy of these texts was donated to the Niterói Group in 1977 by Orlando Senna, a filmmaker, a friend of Amir, and a participant in João Augusto’s work in Bahia. Of the eleven cordéis included in this collection, Tá na Rua developed works on only three of them, whose themes contributed to the discussions proposed by the group at the time.