“A Carta da Corcunda para o Serralheiro” (“Letter from the Hunchback Girl to the Metalworker”), signed by Maria José, was first performed in a theatre show in 1988 (by actress-director Maria do Céu Guerra), two years before the typescript was published in book form for the first time by Teresa Rita Lopes. The evidence upon which this article is built is that it was the theatre that revealed the dramatic destination of this singular epistle of the only female heteronym that Fernando Pessoa invented, which was also the last heteronym to be created by the author. The dramatic construction of Maria José can be approximated to the character-building strategies in Anton Chekhov’s realist dramaturgy, in a way that differs from Pessoa’s other dramaturgical experiences. The analysis of Chekhov’s ascendancy over Stanislavski’s research, as well as the importance of Schopenhauer’s conception of the tragicomic, which is simultaneously projected onto Chekhov’s theatre and Maria José’s profile, are favourable lines of reading for this rapprochement between Pessoa and the Russian fiction writer and playwright. Pessoa’s readings of Chekhov’s texts (such as the play Uncle Vania and the short story “Vanka”) provide relevant data for assessing the magnitude of this encounter.
