Dante Passarelli’s “The Last Drop” Stages a Darkly Comic Take on Housing and Water at the Edinburgh Fringe

Dante Passarelli’s 60-minute play The Last Drop opened as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s São Paulo Showcase, presented by Manás Theatre Lab with English surtitles. The work borrows the opening and closing lines of Shakespeare’s *Hamlet* and re-imagines the tragedy’s motifs of madness, revenge and surveillance within a cramped urban apartment. The opening tableau suggests a murder when Cynthia (Fernanda Zancopé) appears to have killed her husband Gilberto (Ernani Sanchez), only for him to rise and resume their bickering, hinting that larger systemic crimes underlie their domestic dispute.

The Guardian

The production frames the couple’s struggle against a backdrop of “social and environmental unrest,” using the “memory of water” as a metaphor for both contamination and judgment. The neighbour’s wasteful water use, blamed for mould on the ceiling, expands the personal conflict into a critique of the housing industry’s corruption and class inequality. Reviewers compare the play’s stark commentary on class and inequality to Bong Joon-ho’s film *Parasite*, noting its “black domestic comedy” tone that mixes marital foreplay with broader societal indictment.

The Guardian

Passarelli co-directed the piece with Zancopé, employing claustrophobic staging, queasy lighting, and English surtitles to heighten the sense of confinement. The design emphasizes the “rottenness” of the environment, with peeling wallpaper and invasive smells underscoring the characters’ entrapment.

The Guardian

Nonetheless, the reviewer finds the work “well worth a visit,” highlighting its ability to translate everyday experiences of housing venality into a theatrical experience that prompts reflection on class, environmental neglect, and the surveillance of daily life.

The Guardian