"Miss Margarida's Way" by Roberto Athayde

Such a strange teacher, Miss Margarida! Standing before her blackboard, on which she sketches a male member for the enlightenment of her "pupils", or perhaps to leave them in no doubt that they are headed for uncharted territory (her every word has a double meaning), she tackles her audience with almost military energy. Do as I tell you, she barks, bluntly jumping from one subject to another, from literature to virtue, from grammar to maths, anatomy to philosophy. She is nothing if not forthright. "You are all going to die!". Sometimes bullying, sometimes gentle. At the end, she issues a moral call, calling on her pupils to be good, and to love books.
In France, the play was made famous by Annie Girardot's performance in the title role back in 1974, reprised on several other occasions. At that time, the adaptation was by Jean-Loup Dabadie. This production uses another text, but strangely the translator's name is not given. This version appears a little more literal in its interpretation, since the original intention of the Brazilian playwright Roberto Athayde was to denounce the military junta and inspire a collective awareness of what was happening. That message somewhat less perceptible in today's translation. The power of the piece, directed by Anne Bouvier, lies in the performance. Stéphanie Bataille expertly combines both banality and regality. With her white shirt, handbag, chalky hand writing on the trapezium-shaped blackboard, she lets fly words like arrows, launching her character on a crusade to wrong-foot her invisible students (us, perhaps, although we are under no obligation to identify with the young people who are the target of Miss Margarida's pugnacity). Her rhythm is unstoppable, her expression closed yet fused with secret passion. We are great admirers of such actors, with their delicately veiled flamboyance.

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