After The Silence sees writer and director Christiane Jatahy return to the Edinburgh International Festival with the third part in her horror trilogy, dissecting the horrors of Brazil’s fascist regime under former president Jair Bolsonaro. The first part, Dusk, graced the Lyceum stage last Festival with a memorable Dogville-style story; while Before the Sky Falls mixes Macbeth with Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Bruce Albert’s The Falling Sky for a critique of toxic masculinity and patriarchal power. Jatahy’s latest piece combines documentary-style film with theatre and live music to explore the colonial heritage of her homeland, Brazil. The result is an extraordinary work.

Loosely based on Itamar Vieira Junior’s bestselling novel, Torto Arado and Eduardo Coutinho’s classic film Cabra Marcado para Morrer, the piece follows the story of two sisters, Belonisia and Bibiana. Bibiana becomes impatient with the treatment meted out to the locals by the powerful landlord and leaves for the city with her husband, Severo. But when she returns to visit Belonisia, tragedy strikes.

The tale of the tension between landowners and locals that’s grown over centuries is told by Bibiana (Juliana França) who stands behind a table and addresses the audience. The story winds into the story of her, her family, and her husband, intercut with filmed footage (Pedro Faerstein) of Bibiana back home in Brazil, interviewing the villagers and family members, enjoying their shared connection, and lamenting their shared history. The Portuguese is subtitled and accompanied by live Foley (Aduni Guedes) that adds an absorbing delicacy to the poignant moments and a mesmeric power to the magnificent conclusion.

Jatahy’s play deals with history, slavery, colonialism, and generational trauma. Magisterial performances from all three actors (Caju Bezerra, Gal Pereira and França) convey the timeless fury of the plundered and exploited. Cutting between musings on huge topics -the effect of geography, the continuing tremors of history, the repercussions of colonialism- to a dissection of the consequences of a single act of violence, all told by women talking directly to you has a discombobulating effect. You’ll find half your brain listening to the story and half your brain wondering whether this woman has really come all this way to tell us about this horrific thing. Which is likely exactly what Jatahy wants.