Zona de Guerra
Video adaptation of In the Zone
Companhia Triptal de Teatro
São Paulo, Brazil, 2007

Director: André Garolli     Interpreters Direction: Lucia Gayotto
Soundtrack: Eduardo Agni   Light Design : Nelson Ferreira
Set Design: André Garolli and Wagner Menegare
Costumes: Wagner Menegare     Producer: Célia Ramos
Video Editor and Cinematographer: Patricia Alegre
Translated by: Fernando Paz
 

Cast: João Bourbonnais (Jack), Roberto Leite (Smith), Guilherme Lopes (Driscoll), Kalil Jabbour (Scott), Bruno Feldman (Davis), Denis Goyos (Cocky), Wagner Menegare (Olson), Uryas de Garcia (Ivan), Alexsandro Santos (Swanson)

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. This imaginative approach to O'Neill's work is meant, says Garolli, to open cracks to disclose worlds that the text only suggests....  The friction between these texts from a century ago and the contemporary theater we are producing is the spark that keep the fire in the furnace and the ship on course. Zona de Guerra is seen by the company as a cry against the violence we are exposed and the current fear in our lives. This fear was increased with the fateful 9/11 and other terrorist acts around the world. After that, more than ever, those events were exposed by the media, emphasizing that feeling of insecurity and fear, sometimes, blocking the space for reflection about all those acts and attitudes. In this staging, such as in Cardiff, we focused on re-readings, which gave us the opportunity to bring the author’s imaginary to dialog with our contemporary questions, finding his texts incredibly current. In the audiovisual versions of Companhia Triptal’s plays Bound East for Cardiff and In the Zone, we did not want simply to film the acting performance. The camera participation in In the Zone, takes part closer to the spectator view point. In the same way as in Cardiff, there was a search for its own language and away from simply a video recorded play. This camera reveals distorted images and closed angle shots, showing the confined atmosphere that the characters lived.