A TRIAL
Based on the play An Enemy of the People

by Henrik Ibsen

A TRIAL reinvents Ibsen’s drama as a contemporary, participatory “people’s tribunal,” where truth is not merely unveiled but actively subjected to judgment. The point of departure is the scandal at the heart of An Enemy of the People (1882) by Henrik Ibsen: Dr Thomas Stockmann, the medical officer responsible for the municipal baths on which the town’s prosperity depends, discovers that the water supply is perilously contaminated. He is forced to recognise that safeguarding public health demands political courage, personal sacrifice, and open confrontation. When Stockmann insists on making his findings public, the entire civic body – the town’s institutions, the press, and the majority opinion – turns against him, denouncing him as an “enemy of the people.”

Brazilian theatre-maker Christiane Jatahy, one of the most outstanding voices on the international stage today and recipient of the Golden Lion for Theatre at the Venice Biennale in 2022, takes up the narrative precisely where Ibsen leaves it suspended. Stockmann returns and demands a second judgment – not vindication, but the right to a neutral process capable of scrutinising his actions, decisions, and public conduct. Was there, in the end, an attempt to subvert democracy? Is he, or is he not, an “enemy of the people”? He upholds his own defence, while his brother and the town’s mayor, Peter, assumes the role of prosecutor. The remaining characters circulate with competing versions of truth, transforming a family conflict into a collective moral mirror.

The formal device Jatahy employs is decisive: in the absence of judges and lawyers, authority is transferred to the audience. Spectators may register as jurors, and twelve are selected by lot to question witnesses and request clarification. They then withdraw to deliberate and issue a public verdict – revealing not only the contours of the case, but also the ethical coordinates of those who judge it, allowing for a different outcome each evening.

At the shifting boundary between theatre and cinema, Jatahy’s hybrid dramaturgy interweaves live performance, pre-recorded material, and digital “testimonies,” entering into direct dialogue with Brazil’s own timely and complex ecological and political realities.

At the centre stands Stockmann, embodied by Oscar-nominated actor, co-creator, and principal performer Wagner Moura, who becomes the catalyst of a stage process that turns theatre into an open arena of civic negotiation.

This is not a re-enactment of a trial. A TRIAL urges us to take a stance – and that is precisely its central stake: to leave us, in the end, with the weight of judgment, and with the burning question of how much truth a society can bear when its own interests are placed on the line.