A row of actors introduce themselves amenably and announce their upcoming play: they are going to adapt Lars von Trier’s 2003 film, Dogville, with its story of a fugitive woman given harbour by a small community in the Rocky Mountains in lieu of her labour, while one member of this troupe films the action. They enlist an additional actor, rising from within the audience, to play Graça, here escaping a quasi-fascist regime in Brazil.
Adapted and directed by the Brazilian film and theatre-maker Christiane Jatahy, this production might be seen as part of a growing – at times frustratingly derivative – trend to bring well-loved films to the stage. What is refreshing here is that even though the film forms the basis for this intriguing show, it is not a straightforward adaptation by any means. Rather, it takes Von Trier’s framework of theatrical artifice, and his themes, to use them with utmost self-awareness.
