Nelson Rodrigues (1912-1980) was a novelist, playwright and journalist. He was born in Recife but moved with his family at an early age to Rio de Janeiro, where he lived until the end of his life. He embarked on a journalistic career at the age of thirteen as a crime reporter on his father’s newspaper. By the age of fourteen, he had his own column, and a few years later he became involved in sports reporting and football broadcasts. By the ‘60s and ‘70s he was a popular football commentator. He wrote his first play, A woman without sin [A mulher sem pecado], in 1940 and followed it the next year with The wedding dress, which marked the birth of modern Brazilian theatre. Rodrigues’ works were viewed as daring, vulgar and rebellious, because they were so dissimilar to the popular comedies of manners of that era. He populated the stage with characters from petit-bourgeois and middle-class families, who used everyday language to express their innermost thoughts and desires, whether in an atmosphere of realism, via memory, or even through hallucinations. Rodriguez put the social conventions of the time under the microscope and highlighted controversial issues such as homosexuality, incest, and racism. He wrote 17 plays in all, as well as novels and short stories, soap operas, and film scripts. Many of his plays are now considered classics and his influence extends across the whole spectrum of Brazilian  theatre.

 

A short list of his plays:
Wedding dress [Vestido de noiva], Black angel [Anjo negro], Family portraits [Álbum de família], Doroteia [Dorotéia], Waltz no. 6, The asphalt kiss [O beijo no asfalto], All nudity shall be punished [Toda nudez será castigada].