During this season, the audience will see the premiere of German director Christian Weise’s performance “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” based on the play by Tennessee Williams, the premiere of director Oskar Koršunov’s “Kantas” based on the play by Marius Ivaškevičius and the premiere of the young generation director Augustus Gornatkevičius based on Gerhart Hauptmann. the play “Rats”.
“Each era has certain dramaturgy fashions or dramaturgy circles, so it becomes interesting to watch how classic dramaturgy comes back, allows you to see topical themes anew. All upcoming VMT premieres have elements of German culture. Our goal is to introduce rarer plots, plays and names that are almost unknown to the Lithuanian audience into the theater circulation. In the theater, it is useful to find plays that have unusual forms and characters with complex destinies” – says Gabrielė Tuminaitė, head of the VMT Art Department, about the selected works of the new season.
“The new 36th season of the Vilnius State Small Theater will be German, full of excitement and anxiety. The first German team will create based on the classic play by T. Williams “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and will present their work at the beginning of October. This creative team is bright and interesting, so I can’t wait and it will be fun to see how this long preparation process will finally reach its finish line and we will see German theatrical expression in our theater.
The second, perhaps the biggest, production based on M. Ivaškevičius’s play “Kantas” will return to the theater; directed by Oskars Koršunovas, the premiere will take place in March. Next, we will be treated to a performance based on another German play by G.Hauptmann, “Rats” (directed by Augustas Gornatkevičius), whose premiere is scheduled for April. I believe that the theater will give hope to the audience, because always, even in the most difficult times, culture becomes a pillar in every way”, says Simonas Keblas, manager of the Vilnius Small Theatre.
Ramunė Marcinkevičiūtė, a theater expert and professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, evaluated the upcoming repertoire of the new season of the Vilnius Small Theater and the upcoming premieres: “It looks like an interesting and attractive season, based on the quality of the repertoire content, acting and directing skills. The theater gives the audience the opportunity to meet the modern 20th century. classics, to see how the work of Bergman, Cocteau or Hauptmann is understood, actualized by a new generation of directors.
Photo by Judita Juknelė/Gabriele Tuminaitė
In such meetings, our realities, what we live today, and the time-tested stories about us usually come together. The audience’s curiosity is encouraged and the premiere of T. Williams’s play “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” is planned, which is being created together with the creative team of German artists. A good theatrical adventure is promised by the meeting of recognized masters Ivaškevičius and Koršunov with the seemingly invincible Immanuel Kant. The Vilnius Small Theater invites us to discover what we may not have known about known things”.
German version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
New season on October 3, 4, 5. VMT will begin with the premiere performance “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by the contemporary German director Christian Weise, who stands out for his unique character and style, based on the play by the American playwright T.Williams. Together with the director Ch. Weise’s performance will be created by a German group: playwright – Beate Seidel, set designer – Julia Oschatz, costume designer – Josa Marx, composer – Jens Dohle.
Director Christian Weise finds biting humor in T.Williams’s work and creates a worldview that most beautifully reveals the intentions and motives of the characters. In many of his plays, the stories are constructed using a “perverted” multi-layered, absurd, ironic, comic way of telling. The characters of the plays are bright, interesting, unique, the director’s language is unusual, but the idea is revealed, it seems, completely naturally. This in itself creates a picturesque, extravagantly strange atmosphere in which the whole story unfolds. T. Williams is considered one of the three most influential artists of the 20th century. playwrights, along with contemporaries Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller.
The play tells about the owner of a plantation in the south of the USA, Tētušis, who celebrates his birthday with his whole family. Dad is terminally ill, but he doesn’t know it yet. Therefore, a struggle for inheritance begins among his descendants. While her son Guper, his wife Mäjė and their spoiled children play a happy family in front of Daddy, Megė tries to convince her alcoholic husband Brikas to participate in the scramble for Daddy’s pots of gold. In the premiere performance, the following actors play the roles: Margreta – Teklė Baroti, Brikas – Šarūnas Januškevičius, Mėjė – Gintarė Latvėnaitė-Glušajeva, Motušė – Ilona Kvietkutė, Tėtušis – Tomas Rinkūnas, Father Tukeris – Balys Latėnas, Guper – Tomas Kliukas, Doctor Bo – Tomas Stirna , Girl – Larisa Kalpokaitė, Little boys – Jonas Braškys and Mindaugas Capas.
The National Theater of Luxembourg in the Lesser – „Lovefool“
October 16 The one-man play-dramatic comedy “Lovefool” by actress and director Gintarė Parulytė, created at the National Theater of Luxembourg, will be shown in the Vilnius small theater. This is a hilarious and heartbreaking one-man show about Grace, a young woman who longs for love, but finds it in the most inappropriate places. The play is an honest, frank and unvarnished analysis of emotionally neglected fathers, codependent mothers and how unresolved childhood traumas affect our ability to love.
After sold-out premieres at the National Theater in Luxembourg, the play became a huge success in other countries as well. After a sold-out performance at The Coronet Theater in London, for which Lovefool was awarded the prize for best play, the play was invited to the Summerhall Theater at the famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival and to the Brooklyn Art House Theater in New York, where the performance was well received. appreciated by both viewers and critics.
Gintarė Parulytė is an actress, writer, director from Luxembourg. Since the age of 15, he has been filming in the cinema, participated in international theater and film projects, and directed films. in 2019 The autobiographical monoplay “A Lithualien in the Land of Bananas” was shown at VMT, and the monoplay “Lovefool” premiered in Lithuania at last year’s international performing arts festival “ConTempo”.
Some reviews from foreign media: Lovefool is truly unique. Humor intertwines with incredibly deep and moving moments” (Broadway Baby); “From one extreme to the other, the roller coaster managed by Gintarė Parulytė will challenge you” (The Daily); Lovefool is perhaps the best theater production seen this season. 55 minutes a riveting monologue that evokes many emotions. Be willing to explore emotional scars and begin a journey to self-love” (Luxembourg Times); This is the best performance I’ve seen at the Fringe. Made me gasp, feel for the woman on stage, angry at those who hurt her, and then broke my heart into a million pieces” (Giulia Maino, Edinburgh Festival Fringe).
Small theater “Dramateka”
“Dramateka” is a new space where everyone interested in theater will be able to take a play or other theatrical material of interest to them or read it on the spot. It is like a small theater library, where the audience or theatergoers will be able to discover plays or new sources of creative inspiration, and the theater will open up even more to those who are interested in it. In this way, VMT aims to create a closer emotional connection with the audience, to share quality literature, to create a sense of common pleasure in sharing literary and cultural treasures.
When asked how the idea of ”Dramateka” came about, Gabrielė Tuminaitė, head of the Art Department of VMT, says: “I remember once we met with G. Parulyte in Athens and she said that she had a lot of books, but had no place to put them, so she thought that she would like them in the Small Theater build a wardrobe and put in it your plays, books about the theater or other significant material collected during your life. She told me that she doesn’t want to distribute them to anyone, so it would be nice if they all ended up in the theater, were actively used, had a second life, inspired someone,” says G. Tuminaitė, head of the VMT Art Department.
The tandem of O. Koršunov and M. Ivaškevičius – “Kantas”
In the new season, in March, the legendary tandem of two creators will return to the Vilnius Small Theater – the premiere of director Oskars Koršunov’s “Kantas” based on the play of the same name by playwright Mariaus Ivaškevičius. “The play ‘Kant’ is about taking a person apart and trying to put them back together. Namely, the inner man or inner man, that which makes up our consciousness and even our subconscious or soul, if it exists.
And after dissection, we try to see how that creature interacts with the environment. Is it necessary for this planet at all, or is it worth replacing with something else? – says the author of the play, Marius Ivaškevičius. In the premiere performance “Kantas”, the roles will be created by Kirilas Glušajevas, Ramūnas Cicėnas, Audrius Bružas, Leonardas Pobedonoscevs, Jokūbas Bareikis, Mantas Vaitiekūnas, Vytautas Rumšas jun., Daumantas Ciunis, Indrė Patkauskaitė, Ilona Kvietkutė, Gintarė Latvėnaitė-Glušajeva, Valda Bičkutė, Greta Šepliakovaitė.
“These actors adore Ivaškevičius, and the playwright, who constructed the text from short dialogues, leaves a lot of space for the actors’ antics. . These are actors whose manner of acting has already become a feature of their lives. And Korshunov does not destroy it. He consistently accepted the open souls of the actors, as if continuing the Kantian intersubjective approach to the nature of theater in general. Korshunov, who gave freedom to the actors with a light hand, sought to reveal the Kantian understanding of the world through the actors’ way of knowing the world. <...>. It is very important that Koršunovas got to know the specifics of R. Tumin’s theater from the inside.
Photo by Dmitrij Matvejev/Augustas Gornatkevičius
From the very beginning, this theater stood out for its attention to the concept of Home, which Tumin talked about constantly. This concept of theater-house is still alive today. When living in a small community, it is very important not only to see, but also to understand the model of the truth of the artist who is creating next to him”, wrote theater expert Daiva Šabasevičienė after the premiere of the sketch. Before the premiere, the audience is invited to see the first creative stage of the play “Kantas”, the sketch showings on October 9, 10 and November 19, 20.
DramaTest Residency Winner – Rats
in 2024 The winner of “DramaTest Residency” – director Augustas Gornatkevičius, had the opportunity to reside in the Vilnius State Small Theater, who presented a sketch based on Gerhart Hauptmann’s play “Žiurkės”. Director Augustas Gornatkevičius works in the main theaters of the country, cooperates with independent theaters and concert institutions, stages plays for both adults and children, and has been nominated for the “Golden Cross of the Stage” several times.
The performance examines the typical themes of G.Hauptmann’s work, which is rarely performed on Lithuanian stages – social and class inequality, societal division, collapsing family values, and the issues of the role of art in modern society. It is a work about city life, marking the parallels between today’s Vilnius and Berlin before World War I.
This play also deals with the theme of anxiety, uncertainty. The comparison of two cities – Vilnius and Berlin – is symbolic here, because in fact we all feel the same at the moment, despite the differences in the distances and sizes of the cities, their culture and rhythm – we live with the same moods and intuitions. The premiere of A. Gornatkevičius’ play based on this play is scheduled for 2025. in the spring
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2024-08-27 19:23:16