playing at carnival

Everything I needed to know about Carnival, I learned in Theatre Studies. Bakhtin, Shakespeare and Aphra Behn repeatedly prompted discussions about the suspension of social norms and the magical things that can happen on a Carnival night. A last-minute offer to ride with a colleague to Lisbon for the long Carnival weekend was too perfect to pass up. Licentiousness? Debauchery? Costumes? I'm there.

I popped my Carnival cherry in Torres Vedras, with cousin C and the rest of the gang.

I didn't take many pictures -- we were packed into the cobblestone streets so tightly that the jostling made taking out my camera difficult. At one point we scored a stoop, from which it was actually possible to dance. Those left in the swarm were bumped to the beat (or close enough) by the constant flow of naughty nuns, Pocahontases, human-sized beer bottles, Raggedy Ann dolls, a Pope, cartoon characters, miscellaneous animals, and battalions of cross-dressers.

My cousin and I wore matching Little Red Riding Hood costumes, which came in handy when it started to drizzle. The rain didn't seem to bother anyone, though -- not even the guy who climbed a tree in the plaza and ripped off his dress to show off his black lacy underwear.


Monday night at Bairro Alto in Lisbon was a similar story. On the coldest, wintriest nights the Bairro is full of people, standing outside the tiny bars with beers in their hands. On Carnival Monday, it was almost impossibly crowded and even more convivial than usual. I pulled together the standard cat costume with cardboard ears and a black stocking/coat hanger tail -- which invited congratulatory meowing from fellow revelers. My favourite costumes of that evening (possibly the whole Carnival) were the six people dressed up as youtube videos. They wore big cardboard boxes as computer screens, with a square cut out for their heads, and a long list of comments down their fronts. I almost ran into one of them who looked at me expectantly and said, "Download? Share?" Too funny.


I rounded out the weekend at the Tuesday afternoon parade in Sesimbra, a beach town 40 kms south of Lisbon. If it weren't for the people in the crowd wearing coats, you would have thought you were in Rio. Sparkly floats paraded, scantily-clad girls shimmied, and the samba drums beat loudly, with the calm waters of the bay as their backdrop.


As for the licentiousness and debauchery -- I'd be breaking the rules if I told you about them. Carnival excesses exist because we agree not to talk about them once Lent begins.

What happens in Carnival, stays in Carnival :o)