Augusto de Lacerda

Playwright, poet, novelist, theatre theorist, and journalist, son of the actors Carolina Falco and César de Lacerda (who was also one of the most representative authors of the second phase of Portuguese Romantic drama), stage director, and professor at the National Conservatory, he began his literary career in journalism and made his theatrical debut in 1884 with the one-act verse play A Flor dos Trigais, which was followed by several dramas and comedies of Romantic lineage. Concurrently, he published novels (O Padre, 1886; O Juízo Final, 1896; O Rabi de Galileia and Aurora, 1904) and short stories (As Filhas de Eva, 1882; A Pança, 1883), which progressively approached the Naturalist aesthetic that was upheld in his subsequent dramatic production, notable among which are Terra Mater (1904), A Dúvida (1906), A Lei do Divórcio (1910), Telhados de Vidro (1914), Mártires do Ideal (1915), and Os Novos Apóstolos (1917). Modeled on early-twentieth-century French conventions, his work drew immediate inspiration from the situation-driven dramas of Bataille and the idea-driven dramas of François de Curel. His final play, a historical tragicomedy with a well-crafted plot, O Pasteleiro do Madrigal, premiered in 1924, the year he published a theoretical volume, O Teatro Futuro, a "vision of a new dramaturgy," in which he advocated—without entirely shedding certain positivist preconceptions intermixed with vague metaphysical notions—for a total theatre encompassing "the art of the playwright, the actor, and the set designer, in all its complexity."