Longa Viagem de Volta pra Casa
Video adaptation of The Long Voyage Home
Companhia Triptal de Teatro
São Paulo, Brazil, 2009

Director: André Garolli     Translation: Fernando Paz
Scenery and Costumes: Wagner Menegare
Producer: Carla Estefan     Video: Patricia Alegre
 

Nick - Roberto Leite Olson - Daniel Ribeiro Freda - Juliana Liegel Joe - Kalil Jabbour Kate - Beth Rizzo Mag - Malu Leiserovitch

Cocky - Bruno Feldman Ivan - Pepe Ramirez Driscoll - Guilherme Lopes Sanfoneira - Aline Reis The Rough - Renaldo Taunay

Companhia Triptal was formed in 1990 with the mission of creating innovative productions for children.  Their first project, Maria Clara Clareou, staged seven texts of Maria Clara Machado, a popular writer of plays for young people.  For the past decade, the company has staged more adult productions with a special interest in the O'Neill's early sea plays—Zona de Guerra (In the Zone), Longa Viagem de Volta pra Casa (The Long Voyage Home) and Cardiff (Bound East for Cardiff), collectively titled Homens ao Mar (Sea Plays).  Crafted in a variety of nontraditional spaces, Triptal's rendering of these works has brought the company considerable success in their home country:  Zona de Guerra was awarded the prestigious APCA (Criteria Association) Award for "Best Spectacle" and was nominated for the Premio Shell de Teatro (Shell Theatre Award) for its striking gritty production.  Cardiff received Shell nominations for its outstanding direction and musical direction, and received the Premio Shell for Best Scenic Design. To director André Garolli, O'Neill's sea plays deal with characters who feed themselves with dreams that they couldn't achieve, because the chosen ways lead them to failure.  Garolli parallels O'Neill's time period with that of the contemporary world by abstracting the original texts and creating a highly physical and environmental staging.  Garolli intends the resulting tension between text and staging to bring O'Neill's common humanity to the forefront, while drawing the audiences into the world of each play in unexpected and unconventional ways. Regarding the video adaptation of Longa Viagem de Volta pra Casa, video editor Patricia Alegre relates, "we had a lot of technical problems, such as the sound, because the place where we did the play was too big and there was too much echo, as well as outside noises. Besides, we had a very short time to record this video; we did it one or two hours before the performances, in three days, so it was quite difficult to edit.  Anyway, it was a funny and interesting experience, for me and to the actors. I tried to capture the essence of O'Neill's text and of André's staging, and my camera tried to participate in some way of the action, like if it was someone's eye inside that decadent bar."