Cassio Scapin says Santos Dumont would be sad to see ‘president fleeing on a plane’

The physical resemblance between Cassio Scapin and Alberto Santos Dumont can be seen again, this time in “Além do Ar – Um Musical Inspirado em Santos Dumont”, which premiered last weekend at Teatro Frei Caneca, in the central region of São Paulo.

The actor returns to the role 19 years after playing the Father of Aviation (1873-1932) in the miniseries “Um Só Coração” (Globo, 2004). The coincidences between them do not stop there. Scapin, like Santos Dumont, maintains a discreet personal life.

In an interview with F5, in the theater audience after the first session last Saturday (14), the actor said he is not married and does not have children, but is in a relationship – he has been dating pharmacist Diego Redondaro for years – and also adopted Twiggy, a dog that has accompanied him for 19 years. The justification is the same as that of Santos Dumont: love and dedication to the profession.

“I don’t intend to have children because I wouldn’t be able to be a good father, mainly because of work”, he says. “I have this as a priority here [aponta para o palco], which sucks. In the premiere, we worked more than 12 hours. So it’s like marrying my craft.”

He also claims that he has an absolutely normal life. “That’s why the theater is cooler. I always prefer to be here.”

When playwright Maria Adelaide Amaral and director Ulisses Cruz identified the similarity between Scapin and a Brazilian aviator, he joined the Globo series and fell in love with the iconic character upon studying him more deeply.

“He was an incredible man, with a unique elegance. He was part of the Brazilian financial elite, and his father became one of the main coffee growers in the country. The family was rich, bourgeois. But he is a great example of people who use the money to benefit humanity,” he says.

In “Além do Ar”, Scapin shares his character with three other actors who play Santos Dumont in different phases, from childhood, when he was already driving locomotives on his father’s farm at the age of 7, to his peak in the air in his early thirties.

Near the end of his life, in one of the phases experienced by Scapin, the aviator revisits his story as the relationship with his sister Virgínia, who taught him to read, with his father, his great mentor, and with Yolanda Penteado, his best friend.

The musical, with text by Fernanda Maia, shows the accomplishments and conquests of the Brazilian in France, such as the improvement of balloons through the oil engine and the dirigible, which led him to worldwide recognition. The first flight of the “heavier than air” in its 14 Bis and the creation of the Demoiselle, the world’s first ultralight, were not forgotten. But Santos Dumont’s life was not made only of glories.

The 90-minute show also portrays the tragedies that aggravated the aviator’s depression and led him to suicide in 1932, in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo. These are family issues, such as the death of his father and his biggest supporter after an accident that left him unable to move, and his mother.

Multiple sclerosis limited the movement of arms and hands, which prevented Santos Dumont from flying. The crash of a seaplane flying over Rio de Janeiro in his honor left 14 dead, a tragedy that made him isolate himself. Sadness took over him when he learned that his invention was being used in World War I to kill people.

The lack of recognition as a pioneer in the invention of the airplane also shook the Brazilian, according to the show. In a beautiful tap-dancing scene, the actors show the war against the Wright Brothers, worldwide considered the first to fly, in a partial trial to determine the real inventor, which took place in New York, in the United States, and where Americans do not show consistent evidence of having taken off before, but still won the title.

“Imagine your life’s work being forgotten, while others are praised. The accomplishments of the person who changed the world, undeserved. Santos Dumont was wronged”, says Mateus Ribeiro, who plays the aviator in his prime, when he started to use the famous Panama hat with crooked brim after he tries to put out a fire in one of his inventions. The item became fashionable in Europe at the time.

The 29-year-old actor continues. “He did everything unlike the Wright Brothers [que buscavam lucrar com a patente da invenção, enquanto o brasileiro tornou todos os seus inventos públicos]. People are traveling the world because of this man.”

Scapin reacts and imagines how Santos Dumont would see the country’s current political situation. “What would he think when he saw the president of his country running away, escaping on a plane. The same thing when he says that he made a machine that destroyed, that dropped bombs”, he says.

Santos Dumont, if he were alive today, would fight for a better country, according to him. “He would be developing innovations for the benefit of the population, using its potential, its power of access and action to do things in a more correct way.”

The actor who plays the most mature character regrets that in Brazil little is known about the history of the Brazilian who had so much worldwide recognition at the beginning of the 20th century.

“He is doubly wronged, because Brazilians have a memory problem. We forget those who produced good things for the country. At most they saw a street or avenue name, like Santos Dumont here in São Paulo. Injustice is part of of our culture of lack of memory by not cultivating the culture we are building”, says Scapin.

Ribeiro, who previously also knew the basics of the aviator’s story, incenses the sensitivity of Fernanda Maia’s text for the play in which he is one of the protagonists, such as the scene that shows the death of Santos Dumont.

“Fê Maia is a genius. She is always careful with her texts, because we are talking about a figure who exists and has family members. He is admired, but little is known about his life. Many only know that he invented the airplane. We show in the play that, despite a brilliant life, it was also one of a lot of suffering”, says Ribeiro.

The Lia Maria Aguiar Foundation, which organizes the show, encourages low-income children and adolescents to discover their artistic talents, so much so that the young cast is made up of young people from this program. The play opens in the year Santos Dumont would have turned 150 and runs until February 19.