Wagner Moura leads the modernization of Ibsen in a unique collaboration at European festivals | stage

Award-winning Brazilian actor Wagner Moura stars in a new play that will be shown at three European festivals next year, in its first co-production since its founding two years after World War II.

Moura, who was nominated for an Oscar for The Secret Agent, will take on the lead role in a new production that updates Henrik Ibsen’s play “An Enemy of the People” to examine modern political and environmental conflicts.

The play is co-financed by the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), the Avignon Festival in France, and the Netherlands Festival in Amsterdam, all of which were founded in 1947 in an attempt to rebuild European art after the war.

Officials from the three festivals said there were strong resonances today in that period, as Europe is once again reeling from war, the far right and economic crises. This made their collaboration, which will last for three years, timely, they said.

The play “The Trial – After the Enemy of the People” is directed by the famous Brazilian director Christiane Gatahi, who previously worked closely with the three festivals. She said the play was inspired by modern battles with fascism.

In a joint press conference with the three festivals, Gatahi said Brazil had recently suffered from the tyranny of former President Jair Bolsonaro, while the Cop30 climate talks in Belém in the Amazon had served as a theater of environmental conflict, with indigenous leaders fighting security guards to gain access to the talks.

She said Bolsonaro’s regime was a “horrible moment.” “Fascism is everywhere now, and it is this new fascism that has used economics and the tools of democracy to stay in power.” This is “really understood” in Brazil, she said.

She added that Brazilians are “very connected” to the environmental and climate crises. “So we really know that. And we’re living this in the present, not the past… how this devastation affected people’s very immediate personal lives.”

She said the play featured Ibsen’s main protagonist, Thomas Stockmann, who raised the alarm in Ibsen’s production about polluted water in his city’s spas, and was put on trial.

In its production, 11 audience members will serve as judges each night. While almost all of the dialogue was scripted, about 5% of it would be improvised, based on the actors’ reactions to the jury’s decisions.

Moura, who will play Stockman and helped write the script, became the first South American to win Best Actor at Cannes for Secret Agent earlier this year, as well as earning a Golden Globe nomination for Netflix’s Narcos in 2016 and a Golden Eye Award for Career Achievement at this year’s Zurich Film Festival.

The Edinburgh International Festival will put several of its tickets for The Trial on sale later this month, along with tickets for three other major productions: the Edinburgh premieres of the Berlin Philharmonic, considered by many to be the world’s preeminent orchestra, since 2006; Production of Verdi’s Masked Ball; and a new San Francisco ballet piece featuring an original score by electronic music producer Floating Points.

The Netherlands Festival will go on sale for its shows from late November, while tickets for the Avignon shows will go on sale in the coming months.

EIF creative director Roy Luxford said the bulk of tickets for next year’s festival would go on sale in March as usual, but the festival needed to innovate by increasing choice. Some festival-goers may appreciate the opportunity to plan more ahead, while “these tickets would make great Christmas gifts.”

Thiago Rodrigues, director of the Avignon Festival, which focuses primarily on theater and takes place in July, said their cooperation was “probably needed more than ever because of all the threats to the arts economy, and also to the existence of the arts in a democracy.”

He added that Ibsen’s original play was prophetic. “This piece also deals with the environment, justice, corruption, and community organizing. Let’s say it’s a piece that’s able to put in brief many of the big issues of our day.”

Despite their shared history, Emily Ansink, director of the Holland Festival, which takes place in June, said the festivals had worked with each other bilaterally before but not all three at the same time.

“We’re not afraid to put bold art and bold artists on stage, and I think that’s the thing where we can find each other very easily,” Ansink said. “So the artistic conversation is also very interesting about our positioning. We’re different from each other and have different points of focus, but in the end, we’re really connecting artistically.”