My review of Filipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s Night Stage (Ato Noturno), a queer drama-thriller connecting acting and politics through ambition, masculinity, desire, and the dangerous need to be seen. Bold in its characters’ behaviour yet surprisingly conventional in its aesthetic choices, the film explores two men whose professions depend on carefully performing public identities while their desires continually threaten to destabilize them.