Dusk

Dusk tells the story of the young Graça fleeing Brazil in 2021, at a time when fascism is growing under a far-right government. She seeks a new place. A new possibility of life. 

She is in a theater, where the characters from the movie Dogville take up the story of the film with the desire to change it, in order not to repeat the same script, the failure of acceptance of the other. She accepts to participate in the experience. 

But life on stage, where theater and cinema mingle, and the desire for acceptance,develop into a relentless human laboratory. Little by little the characters in this story drift towards repeating the same coward impulses. The film that is being made live as part of the dramaturgical experiment, starts to be invaded by the ghosts of the past. 

Without realizing, Graça, fleeing from fascism, throws herself into its arms, like a being that moves forward, determined, toward its own tragic destiny. This could happen anywhere in the world. But it is here and now. A fictional place that, unfortunately, is close to reality.

On stage and in the film, everything is visible: the actors filming and being filmed, the relationships between them, the live music, the editing of the film, the discussion about the script. And the possibility, even if utopian, of change, of not repeating the same cycle forever.

Dusk is the first part of the Trilogy of Horror.

At the end of the last decade Brazil started a flirt with a far-right regime, jeopardizing the all too recently conquered democracy. Confronted with the urgency of the situation in her homeland, it was clear for Christiane Jatahy that her art – result of a continuous exploring of borders between cinema and theater, between fiction and reality, between inertia and the need for change – would be a weapon in the fights that need to be fought.

Three episodes form this Trilogy of Horror, aiming to dissect the endemic structures that enabled the rise of the Bolsonaro government; created in three different languages and in three very different contexts, it opens a number of windows on the blackout that’s been affecting a nation and threatens to do the same in so many others:

Entre Chien et Loup was created at the Comédie the Genève with a mixed Swiss-French-Brazilian cast to explore the mechanisms of fascism, in a dialogue with Lars Von Trier’sDogville. It premiered at the Avignon Festival 2021 and has been touring extensively since then.

Before The Sky Falls, a German spoken creation at the Schauspielhaus Zürich with actors of the ensemble of the house, digs into Shakespeare’s Macbeth to lay bare the toxic patriarchy that is devouring the planet, confronted by a Yanomami indigenous resistance in the words of Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert’s The falling Sky.

Closing the trilogy, Depois do Silêncio (After the silence) speaks of the questions of race, the denial of the right to speak out of black and indigenous people in Brazil, of territory and resistance, of revolution. Based on Itamar Vieira Junior’s novel Torto Aradoand on the film Cabra marcado para morrer by Eduardo Coutinho, it marks Christiane Jatahy’s return to create in Brazil, with Brazilian actresses and collaborators. Depois do Silêncio opened at the Wiener Festwochen in Vienna in June 2022, and continues touring.

Based on the film Dogville by Lars von Trier
Adaptation, staging and film Christiane Jatahy
Artistic collaboration, scenography and lights Thomas Walgrave
Direction of photography Paulo Camacho
Music Vitor Araujo
Costumes Anna Van Brée
Video system Julio Parente and Charlélie Chauvel
Sound Jean Keraudren
Collaboration and assistant Henrique Mariano
Assistant director Stella Rabello
Production set Ateliers de la Comédie de Genève

With Véronique Alain, Julia Bernat, Élodie Bordas, Paulo Camacho, Azelyne Cartigny, Philippe Duclos,  Vincent Fontannaz, Viviane Pavillon, Matthieu Sampeur, Valerio Scamuffa

With the participation of Harry Blättler Bordas
Acknowledgments Martine Bornoz, Adèle Lista, Arthur Lista

Production Comédie de Genève
Co -production Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe – Paris, Piccolo Teatro di Milano-Teatro d’Europa, National Theater of Brittany – Rennes, Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg – European stage

Lars Von Trier is represented in French-speaking Europe by Marie Cécile Renauld, MCR Agence Littéraire in agreement with Nordiska ApS.
Christiane Jatahy is an associate artist at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, the Centquatre-Paris, the Schauspielhaus Zürich, the Arts Emerson Boston and the Piccolo Teatro di Milano. The Axis company is supported by the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Île-de-France , Ministry of Culture France. 

Duration 1h50
Recommended age 15+
Show offered with English surtitles (optional)