The Last Drop exposes corruption and decay in São Paulo apartment block

The Last Drop, a dark domestic comedy by Dante Passarelli, is currently being performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the São Paulo Showcase. The play, which runs for 60 minutes, is directed by Passarelli and Fernanda Zancopé for Manás Theatre Lab. It borrows the opening and closing lines of Shakespeare's Hamlet and explores themes of madness, revenge, and surveillance, but sets them in a contemporary Brazilian apartment block where corruption and social decay are pervasive.

The story centers on Cynthia, played by Fernanda Zancopé, and her husband Gilberto, played by Ernani Sanchez, who live in a densely packed city apartment with peeling wallpaper and a mouldy stain on their ceiling. They suspect their upstairs neighbour of wasting water, which they believe causes the stain. The play opens with a tableau that resembles a murder scene, but Gilberto soon rises, and the couple resumes their bickering. As the play unfolds, it becomes clear that wider crimes are at play, including corruption in the construction industry that surrounds them.

The play is noted for its claustrophobic direction, English surtitles, and a queasy lighting design. It unfolds against a backdrop of social and environmental unrest, with stark commentary on class and inequality that has drawn comparisons to Bong Joon-ho's film Parasite. The play also plays on the notion of the memory of water, giving it a sinister rather than cleansing quality, and suggests that nature is watching and judging human behaviour.

Critics have praised the play's atmospheric and oblique qualities, but note that the final minutes cram in an extra hour's worth of plot, which dilutes the overall effect. The play includes hilariously unerotic marital foreplay and gives a sense of individual lives adrift in the social system. It captures everyday experiences of the housing industry's venality, making it a compelling but uncomfortable visit.