The aim of this article is to analyze Fernando Pessoa’s The Mariner from an alternative perspective to the usual approximation made with the dramatic and theoretical work of Maurice Maeterlinck. Although this “static drama in one act” effectively refers to the Belgian playwright, the text published in Orpheu 1 presents features that go beyond the conventions of symbolist aesthetics. This is due to the fact that static drama is also present in modern and contemporary dramas, and not only in the fin de siècle period. Thus, I try to demonstrate that Pessoa’s play has attributes that allow it to be associated with the “infra-dramatic regime”, a category proposed by Jean-Pierre Sarrazac, in which the dramatic action has its status changed and reveals itself less active than passive, which favors the development of action rather in the psychic than physical sphere. At the same time, a succinct analysis of that “static drama” will aim to identify a trait that Martin Esslin considers to be characteristic of a conventional dramatic work: the creation of suspense.
