Vladimir Brichta makes his solo-theater debut in “O Menor Palco do Mundo,” a production currently at Teatro Vivo in São Paulo. For just over an hour, he performs in a confined space made from cardboard panels, playing a man who tries to preserve his relationship with his family while incarcerated.
The character has been imprisoned for trafficking marijuana. To remain present in his children’s lives, he creates stories to send them. The play is based on a real experience lived by Australian playwright Kim Crotty, whose work has been adapted for Brazilian audiences.
Brichta says the role drew him in because it portrays a man whose ability to father his children is restricted. The story, he argues, challenges the image of the father as a flawless hero. “Fathers aren’t infallible or heroic, but they often perform that image,” he said, adding that such expectations can leave children feeling they will never measure up.
The subject has personal resonance for the actor. His older daughter, Agnes, and Vicente, his child with actor Adriana Esteves, have moved out. Brichta said he experienced the “empty nest” feeling more intensely than he expected last year, and sees a connection between that absence and the play’s portrayal of a father trying to manage distance and longing.
His history with Agnes also informs his response to the role. After her mother, singer Gena Karla Ribeiro, died when Agnes was a child, Brichta and his former mother-in-law became embroiled in a custody dispute. They resumed living together a year and ten months after the separation. Brichta said he fought to have his daughter back and to be her father, despite knowing the process would be difficult.
Another connection lies in Brichta’s family history. His father, geologist Arno Brichta, was arrested during Brazil’s military dictatorship on accusations of helping resistance groups and lost his professorship at the Federal University of Bahia. Brichta said he grew up hearing about his father’s experience of having his freedom curtailed. He was named after journalist Vladimir Herzog, who was killed by the regime.
The Brazilian adaptation also adds a layer to the original: alongside the imprisoned father, Brichta plays an actor reflecting on his own life. That element brings the role closer to the performer’s experience, while the solo format has required him to adjust how he works onstage. He said he had to learn to control his breathing and leave room for the audience, which often becomes the performer’s interlocutor in a monologue.
Director Luiz Felipe Reis said he accepted the project because it examines men’s inner lives and challenges the expectation that masculinity must reject fragility, vulnerability and loss of control. In his view, questioning the ideal of the fearless, invulnerable father can help open the way to different ways of behaving.
Sources: Folha Ilustrada.