Teen fever

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 Confissões 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.

Confissões 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 Confissões 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.

Confissões 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 Confissões de Adolescente's success? Sincerity was the answer supplied by author Mariana to the newspaper O Estado de São 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 Confissões 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 Confissões de Mulheres de Trinta (Confessions from Thirty-Year-Old Women), Confissões de Criança (Confessions from Children) and Confissões de Homem (Confessions from Men).

Confissões 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 Durão (13) have each seen the play more than 50 times. The friends even traveled to São 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 Confissões led this group to author and star in the play Confissões das Fãs de Confissões (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.

Confissões 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 Confissões 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.

Confissões 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 Confissões's girls during their summer vacation, when "everything can happen", according to Daniel Filho.

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