Dende Collective Plays - Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

DONA FLOR AND HER TWO HUSBANDS

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15 March - 1 April
Lyric Hammersmith, London

Click here to go to Lyric Theatre's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands page.

Cookery teacher Dona Flor's roguish husband drops dead partying at a carnival. A second marriage with a respectable pharmacist gives her stability but not the sensual love she craves. In answer to Dona Flor’s longing, her first husband mysteriously reappears with the help of the Afro-Brazilian gods, the Orishas, creating a very unusual ménage à trois.

Written in 1966, Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos by Jorge Amado is one of the most important novels in Brazilian literature and has been adapted to cinema (1975 cult film with Sonia Braga as the main character) and Television and has been seen on stage in Brazil, USA and Canada.

Dende Collective will stage this novel in Europe for the first time using physical performance, shadow puppetry, samba, capoeira, live music and different theatrical elements to create the world of Amado's celebrated work of magic realism.

The story of Dona Flor

DONA FLOR takes place in the Brazilian city of Salvador. It tells the story of a woman torn between the ghost of her passionate but relentlessly unreliable first husband, Vadinho, and the second - the attentive, studious yet sexually redundant Teodoro. It is a tale of passion, love, culinary delights and Brazilian mysticism. At the end Dona Flor finds a creative way of dealing with her divided loyalties for the two men managing to unite her contradictory desires.

The author

Jorge Amado, the most popular writer in Brazil, wrote over 25 novels, which have been translated into 48 languages and has figured on the bestseller lists in 52 countries. His novels portray the life and customs in the Northeastern region of Brazil, especially of his native state of Bahia, helping shape the outside’s view on his homeland. Bahia was the first area of Brazil colonized by the Portuguese where slaves came through its port of Salvador. This area of Brazil is greatly influenced by African culture, something that marks it out from the rest of Brazil. The region has its own particular kinds of food, music and art. The region's geography and its mixture of races and cultures gave Amado's writing a distinctive taste. Dona Flor and her two husbands remains his most popular novel outside of Brazil and is widely available in English.

DONA FLOR is a feast for all the senses and champions our style of polyphonic theatre and cultural diversity.

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands is supported by:

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