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The Last Drop

Zoo Playground

Four stars

The walls are closing in and the roof is falling down on Cynthia and Gilberto, the bickering couple at the heart of Dante Passarelli’s claustrophobic little play. In the gloom of their spartan apartment, the pipes are gurgling and the entire place is creaking. The entire building sounds like it is on borrowed time and could collapse any second. This would be a blessing to the property developers who are hemming in Cynthia and Gilberto with the shiny new monoliths being built around them. It would also save on demolition costs. For Cynthia and Gilberto, however, this is home, even if the woman upstairs looks set to create an accidental flood by keeping her taps on. 

 

This is a gloriously manic piece of grotesquery by Passarelli, who co-directs with Fernanda Zancopé for this production by Brazil’s Manás Theatre Lab. Part of this year’s Sao Paolo Showcase, this is performed in Portuguese with English surtitles projected onto the sickly coloured living room set, the garish wallpaper of which seems to be lit by a naked bulb. 

 

Such a wilfully festering set-up belies the turbo charged edge to the play, which sees Zancopé as Cynthia and Ernani Sanchez as Gilberto channel the over the top melodrama of Brazilian tele-novellas as pastiched by Pedro Almodóvar. The result is a riotous satire on the iniquities of town planning and how gentrification can squeeze out long standing communities in favour of the shock of the new. As the water from the flat above threatens to burst through the ceiling, the swamp may be about to be cleared in the ultimate act of social cleansing. 

 

Until Aug 30.


The Herald, August 21, 2026


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