By HEDY WEISS

Do not delay. You have only two more chances to engage in (and I use those words literally) what is surely one of the most remarkable theater performances you are likely to experience in a long time.

The work in question is "Bound East for Cardiff," the last of the three sea plays by Eugene O'Neill being presented by Brazil's astonishing Companhia Triptal as part of the Goodman Theatre's ongoing O'Neill festival. I confess, I have fallen head over heels for this wondrous company, which is led by the Sao Paolo-based director Andre Garolli and features a large ensemble (almost entirely male) whose fabulous emotional cohesion is paired with an unforgettable physical presence.

This company also has some fantastic theatrical tricks up its sleeve.

It begins with the audience seated in the Goodman's Owen Theatre as if in the hull of a giant freighter. You hear the seamen singing, you then see them, massed, swaying with the waves and finally, you witness them awash in a great storm at sea that you would expect could only be conjured on a huge Hollywood movie set. Yet with relatively minimal means (huge rolling barrels, a tumbling wall of crates, a water hose, some lanterns, a tarpaulin, a movable stairway and the most astonishing blend of sound, light, fog and acrobatics), the power and chaos of the storm unfolds just steps away, carrying you into another world. And that is just the start.

Audience members are then commanded to come right onto the deck of the S.S. Glencairn, a tramp steamer -- a profoundly feared outfit on which to serve. This is no luxurious trans-Atlantic liner, but rather, something of a floating prison -- full of both brutal and brutalized men who must do dangerous, backbreaking labor and who live the most dreadful existence. We watch them at work and being violently disciplined. And then we witness one terrible tumble downstairs taken by Yank (the impossibly balletic Roberto Leite), a seaman carrying scrap metal. His catastrophic fall takes the form of a slow-motion ballet that is at once horrifying, unimaginably beautiful and technically brilliant in its execution.

As Yank is carried upstairs by his shipmates, the audience follows, finding themselves in a rarely seen Goodman rehearsal room that has been transformed into the forecastle of the ship, where the sound of snoring men can be heard, and the smell of dampness and the sea seem to permeate the air. Here, Yank is tended by his peer, Driscoll (the altogether-riveting Guilherme Lopes), the one man who clearly commands respect among his mates. It is a death watch of piercing poetry, with the relationship between these two men the rare example of sublime compassion on the ship. If nothing else, there is a respect for death here.

The dialogue is spoken in Portuguese, with no translation or annoying supertitles supplied or needed. The bodies, faces and hearts of these men speak with complete eloquence. And a haunting accordion player supplies whatever else is needed.

Don't miss it.