Nearly twenty years ago, we wanted to work together, but our paths diverged. In the meantime, I presented a play at REDCAT in Los Angeles, a theatre that has always supported me and where almost all of my works have been staged. Wagner attended Depois do Silêncio. Afterwards, he came to see me and said something along the lines of: “I want to return to theatre, and I want to do it with you.” We then began looking for a project we both wanted to undertake.

For about a year, we read, watched films, met regularly and talked about politics, our lives, the world we live in and the ways it affects us. I was particularly interested in exploring the family, the social and political context, and the relationship between intimacy and the polis, the community.

Thinking back to the Bolsonaro years, when we saw families torn apart, I also wanted to address the dynamic between brothers and the way it can reflect broader social and political divisions. That is when we came across Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. It was a text that interested me, but rereading it today, I felt it needed to be revisited and rewritten so that its central question would not simply be presented as a given, but brought before the audience for examination. I suggested to Wagner that we create a sequel to An Enemy of the People, set within a kind of social tribunal rather than a legal court, where the protagonist once again asks for the right to defend himself.

What drew you to a play written in 1882?

First and foremost, the question of truth, which lies at the heart of the play, and the importance of defending it. We begin by stating that truth no longer exists, that there are no longer facts, only versions of facts. The discussion about what truth is, how it can be shamelessly denied, and how people promote the idea of truth while knowingly distorting it, speaks directly to the world we live in today. Another important issue is the extremely thin line beyond which fascism begins to gain ground, and the mechanisms it uses to manipulate democracy. There is also the paradox between economic interests and the relevance of truth. For example, tourism may be vital to a community’s economy, yet it can also create dependency and limit deeper engagement with public health and environmental concerns. All of these tensions run through the play.

How did the rewriting process unfold?

After immersing ourselves repeatedly in the text and studying it in depth, drawing on our experience in cinema and on ideas we already had, such as the courtroom framework, we watched numerous films centred on trials. Among them was The Beasts by Rodrigo Sorogoyen, about a man who arrives in a community and tries to prevent local land from being sold for the construction of a road, and Spielberg’s Jaws, which itself was inspired by An Enemy of the People.

I also read a book that greatly interested me about the mechanisms of fascism. We then began structuring the script and I invited Lucas Paraízo, a screenwriter, to join us. I was keen to work with someone who possessed a cinematic sensibility so that the text would carry the energy of film. By the time Wagner came to Brazil and we were about to begin rehearsals, the text had already been written. We continued working on it, and it was wonderful to see what Wagner brought to an already completed text through the energy of his character. The play was written by three people. I probably carried the greatest share of responsibility, but the contribution of the other two was essential to the writing process.

So cinema returns as a material of theatre?

The presence of cinema is evident in the way evidence is presented. Most of it consists of filmed documents, ranging from documentaries to works of fiction, which serve as testimony from the past. There is also a camera that gradually becomes increasingly important on stage and is used as a tool of the tribunal itself. There is yet another dimension: three people with a strong connection to cinema. I move constantly between theatre and film in my work. Wagner comes from theatre but lives and breathes cinema. He thinks through cinema and inhabits it. Lucas writes for film. All of this allows cinema to resonate throughout the piece.

What happens when Thomas Stockmann’s trial moves from the courtroom into the public sphere?

The courtroom structure establishes a set of rules that allows a confrontation between two sides: Thomas Stockmann and his daughter on one side, and Peter Stockmann, representing the community, on the other. We refer not only to the court of law but also to the court of public opinion — what happens on social media, where judgments often take precedence over legal decisions, sometimes regardless of justice itself. To discuss how we judge others within the public space of theatre is also to embrace theatre’s role. Every performance takes place in a specific setting, before a particular audience that is, in principle, neutral with regard to the story being told. The judgment therefore does not occur solely within the fiction. It comes from a real audience, present in the room, who will judge this character through the lens of their own experiences, perspectives and beliefs. Although fictional, the character raises very real questions.

Public debate today is marked by a form of polarisation amplified by social media, often driven more by conflict than understanding. How do you address this in the play?

In a world where dialogue has become so rare, where opinions are increasingly fixed and where people are often unwilling to listen to one another, it is necessary to restore the possibility of hearing both sides and allowing oneself to change as a result. We are losing the capacity for dialogue, and with it we risk losing allies on issues that require collective action if they are to be transformed. We presented the play in Brazil for six weeks and observed how audiences reflected when they were not guided by a lawyer or a judge, and therefore had greater freedom to position themselves.

This complex character raises highly contemporary questions, particularly the tension between scientific truth and economic interests. How does this tension manifest itself in the play?

In this version, the character refuses to accept that the opinion of the majority might differ from his own. Even if he is probably right, the complexity of the character lies not only in what he says but also in how he says it. How does one engage with others while defending something one considers indisputable? People cannot be put at risk without being told they are at risk. They cannot be allowed to bathe in polluted water without being informed.

Yet acknowledging this reality comes at a cost for the community concerned. A dilemma emerges. The town may go bankrupt. People may lose their livelihoods.

But who assumes responsibility for that outcome? What happens to Thomas Stockmann is that he begins to challenge the will of the majority. Is that, in itself, an anti-democratic act? It is a question I pose, and one that we continue to explore throughout the performance. Many productions of An Enemy of the People remove a section of the text in which the character becomes overtly despotic. The severity of his statements places him in an ethically dangerous position, and some directors cut this passage in order to preserve him as a hero. We do not remove it. We allow it to remain visible. The devaluation of the majority and the belief that a minority, an elite, knows what is best for everyone else — this is where the complexity already present in Ibsen’s text becomes apparent. Once that question has been raised, we leave it to the audience to decide what democracy means, and what can legitimately be said in its name.