ABSTRACT
In Uruguay, as we have seen, dictatorship took hold slowly; in Brazil, dictatorship announced itself abruptly. The markers of change were stark as the military staged an overnight coup on March 31, 1964, put the civilian president on a plane to Uruguay, and attempted to steal the Left’s thunder by declaring itself the leader of a “revolution,” a revolution from the Right. And whereas in Uruguay political theater rebounded toward the end of the dictatorship, in Brazil, political theater (and other oppositional arts) fl ourished in a four-year window between 1964 and 1968, when the military had seized power but had not yet cracked down hard on the civilian opposition. The memory of democracy was still vivid and socialist revolution still seemed possible-not only in Brazil but in counter-cultural movements around the world. Some dissident artists then set themselves a loftier goal than remembrance: they aimed for nothing less than bringing down the government.
