After the Silence – Festival Theatre

In Brazil, the award-winning novel, Torto Arado has sold more than 800,000 copies. Spotlighting historical and contemporary slavery, injustice and inequality, this is perfect fictional material for Christiane Jatahy to blend with her journalistic techniques. The novel’s characters relate incidents from Torto Arado with the documentary history of João Pedro Teixeira, a militant peasant who was murdered in 1964 and the perpetrators never punished. Jatahy emphasises the root of fiction is in fact. Her objective always is to raise awareness and to connect the past and the present in immersive projects that include the audience.

After the Silence works on several levels. The cast, Caju Bezerra, Aduni Guedes, Julaina França and Gal Pereira interact with the huge film screen, showing real footage relating to the 1964 uprising, stroking filmed dogs and pointing to their friends as they tell the documented history and their own fictional story, illustrating how they are fibres of the same rope. They join in filmed religious dance ceremonies and encourage the audience to clap along with the drum. Further back from the screen, we, the audience are observing and interacting. It is an inclusive and layered experience. We are all complicit. We are all responsible for the present and the future. We do as we are told.

It opened my eyes to the vast number of African slaves imported to Brazil (millions more than anywhere else worldwide) and how that, plus indigenous slavery, and a goodly number of Portuguese settlers has moulded today’s diverse and unequal religious, social and political climate in this enormous country.

It sent me away curious. I ended up researching: In 2007 the Brazilian government declared that at least 25,000–40,000 Brazilians work under conditions “analogous to slavery.” A 2017 report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy states that thousands of workers in Brazil’s meat and poultry sectors are victims of forced labor and inhumane work conditions. The South African Poultry Association (SAPA) called for an investigation on grounds of unfair competition.

In an interview, Jatahy said: “What I try to do is to connect everybody in the present moment so that we can find a common denominator, co-create and construct relationships, those among the actors, and those between the actors and the spectators. So, the audience has an essential part in my work.”

It was a compelling experience. Unusual. Thought provoking.

Reviewer: Kathleen Mansfield

Reviewed: 23rd August 2024

North West End UK Rating: