reinventamos nosso presente, o futuro de vocês

At the end of Utopia da Memória (2019), a "Mensageira" delivers a series of "fragmentos de correspondência" to the actors. The last of these fragments is addressed to Juliana Liegel. 

"Filha," it begins, "antes de tudo uma pergunta: ao caminhar pela rua ainda sente na boca o gosto amargo da vida?" 

Since the addresser refers to Liegel as "filha" and asks if she still feels the bitter taste of life in the mouth, we assume this is a "mensagem ao futuro" like the ones audience members are invited to leave at the end of the play, which "serão gravados e enterrados para serem desvelados daqui 100 anos em 2120."

The mother's following words complicate this: "Esta é a minha lembrança do passado, mas o amargo da boca alimentou a revolta."

The mother's question now seems rhetorical: she knows that to her daughter the bitter taste of life is not yet a memory of the past (as it is to her) but a taste she still feels in the mouth.

It's as if she wants to assure her daughter that this bitter taste will one day be a memory of the past (if not to her, to those who will come after her), and, just as importantly, that it is food for revolt.

"Hoje," the mother goes on, "posso dizer que quando vamos dormir não tememos o amanhã. Nossas barricadas floriram, das sementes germinaram comida e das bocas coloridas nascem sorrisos. Reinventamos nosso presente, o futuro de vocês."

The mother's "today" is not our past but our future. This "fragment of correspondence" is not from the past to the future but to the past from a revolutionary future -- more specifically, "2134, ano 15 da Revolução Popular."

Then how can the letter be from "Sua mãe"?

Earlier in the play, the same actor, Juliana Liegel, recalls the year 1996 when "Eu vi minha mãe chorando em frente à televisão que noticiava o massacre de Eldorado do Carajás, onde 19 trabalhadores Sem Terra foram assassinados pela Polícia." 

Are these two mothers the same? Has the mother died and been reborn (the same way that "Canudos morre e renasce, morre e renasce")?

Either way, when she reads the letter out loud, talking as if she were the addresser, the actor takes on the role of this mother from her future. 

The more I read and think about this letter, the less the distinctions between "mãe" and "filha," and between "o povo daqui" and "o povo daí" (as the mother refers to those of 2134 and those of 2019), seem to matter.

We would like to be assured that there is no reason to fear tomorrow, as we so strongly do these days, or at least feel that we can reinvent our present, so that the present of those who will come after us will be different.

We would also like to one day send this letter to those who came before us and whose future we inhabit, letting them know that their struggles were not in vain.