Theatres of Brazil

oday, the square is called the Praça José de Alencar. In 1896, when the Theatre's foundation stone was laid, it was the Praça Marquês de Herval. In spite on the efforts of Provincial President Antônio Pinto Nogueira Acioli, and of other influential people in Fortaleza at the end of the century when the cotton-exporting State of Ceará had strong economic and cultural ties with Europe, nothing was added to the foundation stone for the next eight years.
In 1904, once again in power, Nogueira Acioli officially authorized "the construction of a theatre in this capital". Four years latter, the pro-government newspaper "A República", in Fortaleza, announced on May 19th 1908 that "the plan of the projected José de Alencar Theatre, drawn up by our distinguished friend and illustrious engineer First Lieutenant Bernardo José de Mello, may be seen at the Araújo Bookshop. It is a garden-theatre in style, and is composed of four sections".

Soon afterwards, on June 8th, the entire metal structure arrived from the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The activity of the site workers and the curiosity of passers-by brought twelve years of waiting to an end.
On June 17th 1910 the Symphonic Band of the Security Battalion opened the José de Alencar Theatre, to the joy, admiration and pride of the population.

This is one of the most important iron structures in Brazilian architecture. Construction coincided with the 1910 rebuild of the Alberto Maranhão Theatre in Natal; in both cases work was supervised by Herculano Ramos, the State o Ceará's first professionally qualified architect. This explains the presence, in both theatres, of a large, well-lit, three-lined internal courtyard, and the use of the name "garden-theatres".
In September the Lucile Pérez Dramatic Company put on the first play, "O Dote" ("The Dowry") by Arthur Azevedo, theatre writer from Maranhão.

In 1918 a number of changes were made: the gas lighting was replaced by electricity, the asphalt in the garden was changed for tiles, and two internal staircases, made in Ceará on the model of the outside ones from Scotland, were added.

In the '20s, in fear of the transmission of a serious disease caught by one of the employees, the Theatre was closed and its archives incinerated.

Fortunately, in 1974 the old Austrian chairs were refurbished and the battered metal structure rebuilt. Brazilian landscape artist Burle Marx (d. 1994) used Brazilian plants, some of them native to Ceará, to plan the garden that Bernardo José de Mello had thought up 64 years earlier.

During the most recent refitting, Burle Marx was once more called on to work on the garden; he planted a number of rare Brazilian species - Caesalpinia, Licania, Clusia, including some typical of Ceará - the violet Allamanda and others. The lilac flowers of a climbing Thunbergia, native to Brazil, cover the rear part of the garden.

Amid this beauty, the 1989 - 1990 rebuild created an area for open-air performance, with technical resources for sound and lightning. Any one who lives in Fortaleza knows: every Wednesday from 12:30 on, there is "Dessert with Art", a programme put on by the José de Alencar Theatre and the State Secretariat for Culture and Sport. Go in by the main door; entry is free.

The José de Alencar Theatre, which also house the Carlos Câmara Library, specialized in the scenic arts, was put under a conservation order by the Heritage Department on August 10th 1964, at the initiative of the architect Liberal de Castro.