Royal Lyceum Theatre
Five stars
The truth hurts in Brazilian director Christiane Jatahy’s remarkable treatise on justice, power and how dissenting voices can be demonised by corrupt systems. The story of this all too current state of affairs may have been set down by Norwegian naturalist Henrik Ibsen back in 1882 in his play An Enemy of the People, but his tale of Thomas Stockmann’s discovery of a contaminated water system in his town only for him to be dismissed as that enemy is all too pertinent.
Jatahy, alongside writer Lucas Paraizo and actor/writer Wagner Moura, have brought this home to Brazil and back out into the world with a contemporary sequel of sorts that puts both Stockmann and the system he stands up against on trial. Moura introduces this idea to the audience in an exchange that sets out its inclusive dramatic store from the start. With both performers and tech crew sat on stage operating live camera feeds and archive video, nothing is hidden as Moura steps in and out of the action as Stockmann, while eleven audience members are selected to become members of the jury. This is steered in this presentation by Axis Productions with Edinburgh International Festival and a raft of international partners by Scottish actress Louise Burke, drafted in for the occasion as a kind of mistress of ceremonies and chief interrogator.
The cut and thrust between Stockmann and his brother Peter, played by Danilo Grangheia, opposing him with all the forces of the state he can muster, looks at the all too real situation of profit being put before clean water. As the state is questioned by Stockmann’s daughter, brought to life here by Julia Bernat, the personal consequences of this family at war leads to manipulated mob rule, houndings and cancellation. This isn’t an honest exchange of ideas as Stockmann’s life is destroyed. It is a manufactured culture war that sacrifices empirical truth in favour of ideological division where money talks. Of course, it could never happen here.
Performed in Portuguese and English, the show’s discrediting of Stockmann has different resonances here than in a Brazil still stepping beyond the iniquities of the Bolsonaro era. With passing references to mainstream movies Jaws, Erin Brockovich, and even Rocky, the themes are universal. Jatahy has similar form in her previous Edinburgh visits with her take on Lars von Trier’s film, Dogville, in Dusk, seen here in 2023, and with her meta-textual mash-up of Brazilian history in After the Silence, showcased in 2024.
A Trial takes things into a new era even as it takes stock of the recent past. Most fascinating of all in this audacious reimaging of Ibsen’s political prophecy of the sort of partisan public discourse accessible on YouTube, TikTok and all the rest, is that the jury, when they come to vote, don’t necessarily go the way one might expect. As an illustration of what passes for democracy now, however, it exposes some uncomfortable truths in a daring dissection of what can happen when legitimate dissent is shut down. This is where it starts.
Until 10 Aug.
The Herald, August 9th 2026
ends
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