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The play exposing dictatorship hits Rio de Janeiro

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New Directives in Times of Peace, by Bosco Brasil, opens in Rio on April 30 with Eric Lenate and Fernando Billi at Teatro Poeira.

A Polish refugee. A former Vargas-era torturer. Ten minutes to prove who he really is. That is the premise of New Directives in Times of Peace, a landmark Brazilian play by Bosco Brasil now returning to the stage in a new production, with a Rio de Janeiro season at Teatro Poeira, in the Botafogo neighborhood, running from April 30 to June 28, 2026.

A duel of memory and humanity

The story unfolds in April 1945, as World War II draws to a close. Clausewitz (Eric Lenate) arrives at the port of Rio de Janeiro with no documents, no belongings — and, suspiciously, speaking fluent Portuguese. This raises the alarm for Segismundo (Fernando Billi), a customs officer and former political police torturer under the Estado Novo dictatorship. Without a signed safe-conduct, Clausewitz will be sent back on the same cargo ship. But Segismundo proposes an unusual challenge — and an intense confrontation begins, forcing both men to face their darkest memories.

The production is directed by Eric Lenate, in co-direction with Vitor Julian, with production direction by Mauricio Inafre. It had its national premiere at the 17th FITA – Angra International Theatre Festival in August 2025, where it won the FITA 2025 Award for Best Set Design (Eric Lenate). The production also received nominations for best show, best direction, best actor (Eric Lenate), best soundtrack (L. P. Daniel), and best lighting (Aline Sayuri and Eric Lenate). Lenate was also nominated for the APCA 2025 Award for best actor.

A classic that crossed borders

First staged in 2002 under the direction of Ariela Goldmann, the play won the prestigious Shell and APCA Awards that year and has since been translated into several languages. Productions have been mounted in Portugal, Italy, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, Chile, and Mexico. The text was also adapted for the screen in the feature film In Times of Peace (2009), directed by Daniel Filho and starring Tony Ramos and Dan Stulbach.

The political weight of the text

By placing a European war refugee face to face with a torturer from Vargas’s authoritarian regime, Bosco Brasil dismantles the myth of Brazil as a peaceful and welcoming nation. The play draws a parallel between two historical contexts marked by the systematic violation of human rights — World War II and Brazil’s Estado Novo — and prompts a reflection on memory, barbarism, and the role of art in the face of horror.

More than a historical reconstruction, the show interrogates the difficulty of turning extreme horror into shareable testimony — and questions the (im)possible role of art in a world emerging from barbarism.

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