The Wall (O Muro)

Synopsis

A Brazilian favela, on the edge of a rubbish dump. The air is thick with poverty, desperation, and the acrid smell of burning waste.

Alzira, a teenage girl living in desperate circumstances, is caught between survival and morality when she begins stealing food from her school canteen to feed her struggling mother. As the school authorities catch on and increase security measures, Alzira and her friends are driven to more extreme measures, culminating in a dangerous scheme to steal food from the local airport’s waste incinerator.

Cacilda Povoas’s The Wall is a raw and unflinching examination of poverty, social inequality, and the lengths to which people will go to survive. Through two interconnected stories, Povoas crafts a searing indictment of a society that views its most vulnerable members as disposable. The play juxtaposes the wasteful excess of air travel with the grinding poverty of favela life, forcing audiences to confront uncomfortable truths about waste, consumption, and human worth.