What do you think about watching a bilingual play, one of the languages being Brazilian Sign Language (Libras)? It’s totally possible in the theater show The Karamazov brothersadaptation of the novel by writer Fiódor Dostoiévski, which returns to Rio de Janeiro, for a short season, this Thursday (8). The performances will be this and next week, from Thursday to Sunday, at Teatro Carlos Gomes, in Praça Tiradentes, city center.
The team responsible for the play says that the proposal is to go beyond positioning a Libras interpreter in the corner of the stage, dressed in black and with lighting only in his hands. The production brings sign language to the stage, integrated into the cast, with two acting actresses. Furthermore, one of the scenes is completely staged in Libras, involving the entire cast.
But this is not the only means of accessibility in the production directed by Marina Vianna and Caio Blat. Visually impaired people can enter the theater before the rest of the public to have tactile contact with both the costumes and the actors. A fabric book will also be available to read in Braille. There are also ear protectors available for those with hearing sensitivity.
On Thursdays and Fridays, performances are at 7pm. On Saturdays and Sundays, at 5pm. Tickets can be purchased via the website or at the theater box office, which opens on Wednesdays from 2pm to 7pm, Thursdays and Fridays at 4pm, and Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm. The theater opens one hour before the show starts.
The idea of including accessibility in a play began when the co-director and producer of the production, Maria Duarte, directed a festival not related to theater, in which there were many accessibility resources. “It crossed me, it transformed me. It was a different perspective on accessibility that was absolutely integrated into the entire project”, he revealed.
Maria wanted the assembly of The Karamazov brothers had the same conditions and proposed this to the directors.
“That we were willing to make a truly accessible theatrical show. That we didn’t consider accessibility as an obligatory counterpart or an issue that almost hindered artistic creation but, rather, that it was an additional lens for the creation of the show”, he said in an interview with Brazil Agency.
“It doesn’t make sense to make a cultural production that isn’t for all people, who are different and have different demands”, he added, adding that he had never seen a show with integrated accessibility, but knew there were some with this agenda.
Maria Duarte revealed that the accessibility team worked with all members from the beginning of the project to assemble The Karamazov brothers. As a result, the cast includes Malu Aquino and Juliete Viana, two artists who are Libras interpreters, and the scene is made with the language.
“They dialogue with the cast, take on characters and, at the same time, they are translating the text with the delicacy of looking at the theatrical work. It is not a hard translation like in a lecture, a congress, a film. It is an interpretation in Libras”, pointed out the co-director and producer.
“I’m always moved. I think the artistic solutions were very happy. There came a moment when I realized that I had managed to achieve that before it was even ready. It’s very beautiful to have a cast of 13 people communicating in Libras, which was incorporated into the actors’ gestures”, she commented, in the hope that this process will motivate other productions to do the same.
Director Caio Blat said that, in Belo Horizonte, the production was remarkable because the partnership with the Acessa BH project led to the presentation in a theater packed with 1,200 people.
“It is a very important issue, and there is a huge demand from audiences with disabilities who need to be included in the theatrical experience”, observed Caio Blat in an interview with Brazil Agency.
Caio Blat on stage in the play “The Brothers Karamazov”. Photo: Rafael Bougleux/Disclosure.
Crowded Theaters
All presentations of The Karamazov brothers held in 2025 were attended by a packed house. This occurred, for example, in Rio de Janeiro, in São Paulo, capital and interior, and in Belo Horizonte. The expectation is that this season in Rio the public demand will be the same.
“Speaking about Dostoevsky in 2025, in Brazil, and with the theaters packed every season was a dream come true, in the sense that it happened exactly as we dreamed,” said the actor.
Wait
The desire to put on a show with The Karamazov brothers He followed Caio Blat for more than 20 years, since he became interested in Dostoevsky’s work. He shared this desire with his friend Manuel Candeias, with whom he read all of the author’s work and, after choosing this novel, adapted the text for the theater.
“We had no doubt that it had to be this one, because it is the most theatrical of Dostoevsky’s novels. It is a family tragedy full of characters, full of conflicts, of action”, he said.
At the beginning of the 2000s, according to Caio, the first direct translations of Dostoevsky’s work from Russian into Portuguese began to appear, which facilitated the work of adaptation.
“We didn’t want it to be a long piece. We wanted to rescue the popular spirit of Dostoevsky, who was a serial author. All of his great novels were published in weekly episodes in newspapers. They were soap operas, serials”, he stated, highlighting that years later they were considered classics and erudite.
“The family plot is which of the brothers killed their father, something straight out of serials and soap operas,” said Caio.
We wanted to make a play that would be popular, for all audiences, and that would last a maximum of two hours. That was our challenge, to transform one of the novels considered one of the greatest classics of humanity into a popular play”, he commented.
According to the actor, due to a lack of opportunities to carry out the editing, everything was kept in a drawer. The project went ahead when it was presented by Caio and Luiza to Maria Duarte.
Maria adds that, from then on, the search began for partners who would allow the project to get off the ground. The first presentations, in January 2025, were at Sesc Copacabana, after being included in the Sesc Pulsar RJ culture notice and subsequently at Sesc São Paulo.
“It was when we got this group together, me, Maria, Luiza and Marina, that we took the project out of the drawer and turned it into a performance”, reported Caio.
The actor, who fought so hard to get the production done, was moved during the first performance, in January 2025. “I couldn’t believe that this was happening 24 years later. It was a long time dreaming, imagining, tinkering”, he pointed out.
Theatrical play “The Brothers Karamazov”. Photo: Flora Negri/Disclosure
The Karamazov brothers
The montage brings the narrative to the three days that precede and follow the central crime of the plot. “Set in pre-revolutionary Russia, the story follows the disputes between the brothers Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha and their father, Fyodor Karamazov, around the family inheritance and love for the same woman”, summarized the production.
