Nobody has been able to explain the explosive
success of a teenager’s diary that became a play, that became a book,
that became a TV series, that’s becoming a movie. The
nothing-spectacular story of an adolescent girl and her girlfriends has
become a must see for anyone interested in knowing what’s going on in
Brazil right now.
Divya Shukla
Theater is often aimed at an adult audience. This is not true of the play Confissőes de Adolescente
(Confessions from a Teenager) whose theme and characters involve
adolescents and the often misunderstood adolescent years. The play
gained wide acceptance by the Brazilian youth and adults alike.
Confissőes de Adolescente is based on Maria
Mariana’s diaries. The daughter of playwright Domingos Oliveira,
Mariana started to document her life at the age of nine and continued
to do so until the age of 18. Domingos Oliveira saw potential in his
daughter’s writing and consequently encouraged Mariana to publish her
diaries.
Maria Mariana, who is now in her mid-twenties, describes Confissőes de Adolescente
as a guide to the complex world of adolescents; the script allows one
to look through the keyhole that opens the door to the lives of
teenagers. The book tells the story of four female teenagers, who
belong to the 13-16 age group, from the Zona Sul neighborhood of Rio.
The characters are Maria Mariana herself, Daniele Valente and their
sisters.
Confissőes de Adolescente opened in March of
1992 in Casa da Cultura located in Rio’s famous neighborhood of
Ipanema. Initially, it cost about $300 (later it went up to $25,000) to
produce the play. Since then it has played more than 500 times (watched
by more than 200 thousand spectators) and the script has served as the
inspiration for a best-seller (with 100 thousand units sold, so far),
the first Brazilian audio book and a miniseries broadcast on Sao
Paulo’s TV Cultura. After its debut in Rio the piece traveled to 50
cities in Brazil.
What’s the secret of Confissőes de Adolescente‘s success? Sincerity was the answer supplied by author Mariana to the newspaper O Estado de Săo Paulo. “It is something that actually happened, it isn’t fiction.”she added. Mariana’s second book entitled Cara Metade (My Other Half) was released in June. Cara Metade was written in conjunction with her husband Galli and the theme is, what else, but marriage.
Domingos Oliveira believes that Confissőes de Adolescente
gives its young audience exactly what they need: the youth returns to
see the play several times as one would to visit an old friend.
Domingo’s other projects include Confissőes de Mulheres de Trinta (Confessions from Thirty-Year-Old Women), Confissőes de Criança (Confessions from Children) and Confissőes de Homem (Confessions from Men).
Confissőes changed the lives of at least four
females from Zona Sul in Rio. Paula Leal (age 16), Luíza Fischer (16),
Raffaela Bongiovanni (14) and Carolina Durăo (13) have each seen the
play more than 50 times. The friends even traveled to Săo Paulo to see
it.
They are so connected to the play that they have become friends with the actresses. This constant and intimate involvement with Confissőes led this group to author and star in the play Confissőes das Făs de Confissőes (Confessions from the Fans of Confessions).
These aren’t ordinary fans, each of them identifies
with a specific character in the play, so much that in interviews given
to the media whenever there are questions regarding a character the one
that identifies with the character will answer it. They believe that
the play has changed their lives. Luíza said that she doesn’t know what
she would be doing had she never seen the play, Paula admits that it
would probably involve discos and not much else.
The play’s success inspired a made-for-television
series that was broadcast by TV Cultura. The prime-time program was
such a hit that it soon won the second place for all programs shown at
that time slot, that on public TV used to very low rating. The
23-episode series will be watched by audiences in Israel, Finland,
Greece, France, Portugal and New Zealand.
Confissőes is also in its second year of
display in French television. It was the first time that a Brazilian
series was broadcast in France.
Some episodes show the characters vacationing in
Paris (half of the episodes were filmed in Rio while the other half was
shot in Cannes, France). Eventually the character Maria Mariana decides
to study in France and to live with a French family. A second series
should be produced soon.
At the end of last year Confissőes disputed as
a favorite an International Emmy Award with TV programs from England,
Japan, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Spain and France. The Primeiro Beijo
(First Kiss) episode, nominated in the category Program for Child and
Teen-age Public, ended up losing to two British programs: Channel’s 4 Wise Up and BBC’s Little Lord Fauntleroy. Just
the fact that series was nominated for an award, however, was a big
thrill to Daniel Filho and Euclides Marinho, the program’s producers.
Confissőes de Adolescente, the motion picture,
is the next frontier. It should start shooting later this year with
release scheduled for June. The film will show the Confissőes’s girls during their summer vacation, when “everything can happen”, according to Daniel Filho.