(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

PARIS ON THE AMAZON?
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Rubber Follies belongs to the genre of vaudeville, in the French tradition
of the nineteenth century. This kind of light comedy, with songs
and dance, just for entertainment, was then very popular; its annual production
could amount to more than 200 plays, as Benjamin informs us
(d9,3). He used some of them as historical sources, such as Les embellissements
de Paris (1810; cf. M6a,3); Les passages et les rues (1827; cf. A10,3;
A10a,1), and Les filles de marbre (1853; cf. O7,1; O10a,7). Among the
different etymologies of vaudeville, Souza chooses that of “voix de la
ville.” It is indeed by a constellation of voices assembled on a stage in
Manaus that he presents the history of Amazonia at the time of the rubber
boom. Vaudeville, as Souza points out, is a form of theater of “bourgeois
irresponsibility”; with its “low subjects and style” it is meant for “a
less exigent public” (FL, 12). Cultivating an ironic view of history, it takes
distance from the “nostalgia of the good old times in Amazonia,” as well
as from the “politically correct literature,” which denounces the misery of
the seringueiros (rubber workers); its jokes make us laugh instead of shedding
tears, but they also draw attention to injustice and social inequity
(FL, 12–13). Finally, the irreverence of Souza’s vaudeville, in particular its
spirit of follies, is a ludic counterpoint to Benjamin’s fight against “madness
and delusion” with “the axe of reason.”
Focusing on the question of identity, let us now look at some examples
from Rubber Follies. Presented by a master of ceremonies who is
more or less the voice of the author, the play is composed of twelve scenes
with historical persons as well as with symbolic characters. It starts with
the first scientific communication on latex rubber, in 1743, by the French
naturalist Charles-Marie de La Condamine, who made the first scientific
exploration of the Amazon River. A key scene (FL, 51–62), set in the
1880s, shows various human types: the Brazilian colonel, the Englishman,
and the American exploiting the rubber business, each in his own manner.
While the American makes his investments, considering Manaus a new
Klondike, and the Englishman smuggles rubber-tree seeds to Malaysia in
order to break Amazonia’s monopoly, the colonel, who strolls through
the shops of Manaus in the company of several cocottes, declares that his
nature is not that of a businessman: “I was born to enjoy the pleasures
of life” (FL, 56). Another scene (FL, 63–73) evokes Eduardo Ribeiro,
governor of the state of Amazonas from 1890 to 1896, who dreamed of
transforming Manaus into a “Paris of the tropics” and with this in mind
launched a huge project of Haussmannization, the nineteenth - century
demolition of parts of medieval Paris in order to build the grand boulevards
and modernize the city, which figures prominently in the Passagen-Werk.
The Teatro Amazonas, inaugurated on the last day of his
government, 31 December 1896, is the major symbol of that aspiration.
Souza’s vaudeville, however, is not an apology of the local ruling class, as
is clear from the following declaration of the colonel, as a representative