52nd STERIJINO POZORJE FESTIVAL 2007

T h e...C I R C L E S...S E L E C T I O N

Sterijino Pozorje Festival

Novi Sad

May 26th - June 4th 2007

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WEDNESDAY - MAY 30th 2007

Small Stage, Serbian National Theatre

21:30

Marius Ivaskevicius

MADAGASCAR (MADAGASKARAS)

The State Small Theatre of Vilnius (Valstybinis Vilniaus Mazasis Teatras)
Vilnius (Lithuania)

www.vmt.lt

Director RIMAS TUMINAS

Assistant director ARVYDAS DAPSYS
Set and Costume Designer
VILMA MASTEIKIENE
Composer FAUSTAS LATENAS

Premiere: September 28, 29th 2004
Duration: 1 h 45 min

Mother	EGLE GABRENAITE
Father	ARVYDAS DAPSYS
Kazimieras Pokshtas	RAMUNAS CICENAS
Sale	GINTARE LATVENAITE
Mile	VALDA BICKUTE
Hele	VAIDA BUTYTE
Veronica	ILONA KVIETKUTE
Oscar	MANTAS VAITIEKUNAS
Frenchman	LEONARDAS POBEDONOSCEVAS
Steponas	AUDRIUS BRUZAS
Stasys	JOKUBAS BAREIKIS
Lithuanians	JOKUBAS BAREIKIS, AUDRIUS BRUZAS, BALYS LATENAS,
	VYTAUTAS RUMSAS, INETA STASIULYTE
Soldiers	AUDRIUS BRUZAS, BALYS LATENAS

T H E A T R E......

The STATE SMALL THEATRE of VILNIUS (Lithuania)

The State Small Theatre of Vilnius is an Active Lithuanian Cultural Centre
Established in the new building located in the very centre of the Lithuanian capital in the autumn of 2005, the State Small Theatre of Vilnius is one of the most attractive not only among the theatrical spaces, but among city’s cultural spaces in general. Theatrical spirit, specifically linking the past and presents times, bygone ages and modernism, can be sensed in the architecture, the interior and in the performances.
Having had no stage for many years and probably enjoying more fame abroad than in Lithuania, the State Small Theatre of Vilnius today is known by many: students and businessmen, artists and people who have nothing to do with art. Because the motto of the State Small Theatre of Vilnius is An Open Theatre, its essence is to make a contact with everyone coming to performances in this theatre, to speak a language everyone understands, and at the same time to use the language of top artistic achievement. ‘Openness’ of the State Small Theatre of Vilnius has also a practical side: it is open for different artistic, cultural and other initiatives, educational and business events.
The State Small Theatre of Vilnius is located at 22 Gediminas Prospect, the main street in Vilnius, where at the beginning of the 20th-century a society Ruta, important for the Lithuanian culture, had functioned. Ruta was arranging concerts, lectures, also theatre performances. Most prominent cultural people of that time and signatories of Independence Act were taking part in the activities of the society. From the beginning the building was surrounded with the spirit of exceptionality, legend aura, related with famous names of Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis - a most prominent Lithuanian painter and symbolist; also with other famous names like Czeslaw Milosz, Jascha Heifetz. The architecture of the building is also exceptional: the auditorium has a unique glass block ceiling; only two ceilings of this kind have survived in all the Europe - here, in Vilnius, and in Prague. The stage of the Small Theatre of Vilnius is also unusual: different from any other theatre, it is not black but light. The interior of other premises of the theatre features a stylish connection between the authentic style of convergence of the 19th and 20 centuries, and modernism.
But the Small Theatre of Vilnius attracts its audience not only with its exceptional architecture or legends, but also with a repertoire of a high artistic realisation. Still having no home of its own, the theatre was travelling extensively, and has gained the international acclaim a long time ago. The productions staged by the director Rimas Tuminas The Cherry Orchard, Smile upon us, Lord, Masquerade, Madagascar have visited many countries - from Sweden to Italy, from South Korea to Mexico - and were awarded with numerous prestigious prizes. In 1999, after the Masquerade tour in Great Britain, the performing company of the State Small Theatre of Vilnius was lauded by English press as one of the best in the world. Certainly, not only the original direction skills and pedagogical talent of Rimas Tuminas but also an exceptional ensemble of actors having evolved over the course of many years, adds to this success.
The repertoire of the State Small Theatre totals to over ten performances, most of them were staged by the theatre manager Rimas Tuminas. The Open Theatre, fostered by Tuminas, is a theatre of freedom, contrivance and ease. It is a theatre divergent by its faithfulness to the cultural memory and traditions, attentiveness to ‘old-fashioned’ notions and feelings. “You must celebrate the life in theatre. You must open abysms to make a spectator giddy from life, to make him fall in love for at least a moment”, Tuminas says. His theatre is a meeting place for life feast participants.

P E R F O R M A N C E......

SOME NOTES ON "MADAGASCAR"

The story of Madagascaris set in Lithuania of 1912 - 1945. The merry-go-round of ideas is spinning in Lithuania, which has declared independence. The new intellectuals are considering what to do with this new state, which direction it should turn, what it should be. Even the most unbelievable ideas are being discussed as serious projects. Finally all the great Utopians stay alone and unappreciated.
The prototype of the main character Kazimieras Pokstas is famous Lithuanian geopolitician Kazys Pakstas (1893-1960). It would be difficult to find another personality in the 20th century Lithuania, who would have had so many cultural, geopolitical and social ideas, so many daring projects and visions. Geographer, traveler and public figure Kazys Pakstas was called “a minister of propaganda without the minister’s rank”, “the marcher of free Europe”, “Ulysses”, “Lithuania nomad”, “patriotic tornado”, “the nation’s herald”, “the national apostle”, “Lithuanian Cicero” and compared to A. Lincoln and A. von Humboldt. This was a Columbian personality striving towards new spaces throughout his life. Kazys Pakstas is unique in the direct action he had undertaken in order to protect Lithuania and Central Europe from various threats, instead of by only rhetorical means. These actions included his attempts to create a Central European Christian Democrats’ Union and the second, a “reserve” homeland, the so called Dausuva as well the idea of a Baltoscandian confederation. He was seeking to move Lithuania into Africa, because he anticipated the fate of his land.
Another prototype of character named Sale, is eminent Lithuanian poetess Salomeja Neris (1904-1945). Today she’s considered as the most outstanding poetess of the period of independence; still she’s reprehended because of her collaboration with communists. In 1940, she was incorporated into the delegation which went to Moscow to ask for acceptance of occupied Lithuania in the constitution of Soviet Union. In 1945, she died with cancer in the hospital in Moscow.
Really Pakstas and Neris never met. This was Tuminas’ idea. Marius Ivaskevicius choose other prototypes according one criterion: all of them were great Utopians, idealists, who had huge visionary aims and crazy ideas. And all of them suffered a collapse. According to the playwright, he was very curious to investigate what could have happened if these people had met. Another fantastic meeting takes place in Paris, at the Oskaras’ apartment. The prototype of Oskaras is Oscar Milosz (1877-1939) who was famous Lithuanian, Polish and French writer, mystic and Lithuanian ambassador in France.
The language of the characters of “Madagascar” is not contemporary Lithuanian, but similar to the tongue which people spoke in the interwar period. Using this special vocabulary, Ivaskevicius created his own vision of Lithuanian language.

REPORT OF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR......
AND SELECTOR......

The most famous work of contemporary Lithuanian dramaturgy, Madagascar by Marius Ivaskevicius, is based on true characters and events: in particular, on the utopist idea - initiated during a short period of Lithuanian independence in the early 20th century while the country was under a constant threat from Russia - to establish, on the island of Madagascar, an ‘alternative’ country for this small nation. Rimas Tuminas - who is, besides Nekrosijus and Korsunovas, one of the leading Lithuanian directors - uses the grotesque play of the actors and a minimalist, multipurpose and metaphorical space to stage this drama, thus creating a comical-oniric world in which gentle feelings for foolish utopists are mixed with the mockery of their projects arising from national frustrations.

Ivan MEDENICA

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MARIUS IVASKEVICIUS, playwright
Marius Ivaskevicius was born in 1973. He is currently the most popular playwright in Lithuania. He studied philology at the Vilnius University. Has published the books Kam vaiku? (Who Needs Children? 1996), Istorija nuo debesies (Story from the Cloud, 1998). In 1998 his first play Kaimynas (A Neighbour) won the New Lithuanian Drama competition and was produced by the Lithuanian Youth Theatre in collaboration wit the New Drama Action festival and Lithuanian Žaltvyksle theatre in Chicago. The plays 8-230, tai as (8-230, It’s Me) and Malysh were comissioned and presented as a readings in the New Drama Action 2000 and 2001. The preformance Malysh was directed by Marius Ivaskevicius himself and produced by the Oskaras Korsunovas Theatre in 2002. Malysh received Award for the Best Lithuanian play production 2002. In Avignon Festival 2000 the play A Neighbour was first presented internationally (as a reading). In 2003 Ivaskevicius wrote the play Madagaskaras (Madagascar) which was directed by one of the most prominent Lithuanian theatre directors, Rimas Tuminas, at the Vilnius Small Theatre in collaboration with the New Drama Action festival in 2004. Madagascar won the competition of the Best Lithuanian Book in 2004 organized by the Institute Of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. The staging of Madagascar received the award for the Best Lithuanian Play Production in 2004 and merited awards at the international theatre festivalos in Latvia and Poland. It also was performed at the Wiener Festwochen, Baltic Circle (Finland), theatres in Russia and Belgium.
In 2005, Ivaskevicius wrote his fifth play CloseCity in collaboration with international project SEAS and Intercult (Sweden). It was put on by the author and produced by Audronis Liuga Production. The latest play by Ivaskevicius is Covered (2006).
Some of his plays have been translated into English, French, Polish, German, Italian, Hungarian, Finnish, and Russian. The play Malysh has also been staged in Naples, while A Neighbour has been put on in Helsinki.
Ivaskevicius has also created documentary films Einu (I am Going, 1999), Punsko noveles (Punsk Short Stories, 2000), and Dviese ant tilto (Double on the Bridge, 2004, directed together with V. Navasaitis).

A U T H O R ...

In this play, Madagascar is a symbolic place to move Lithuania to. Some politicians of the interwar period did not think of it as symbolical though. Then the geographer Kazys Pakstas’s idea of Lithuanian colonization of Africa was very influential and urgent. Lithuania saw itself as an isolated national island among big nations, so why not to move it into a real island? The director and I, we envisioned interwar Lithuania as a phenomenon in search for some adaptation. This search, that lasted twenty years is, of course, funny, but also beautiful. In a sense, now we are again starting to look for what was not found then.

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The leader of the Vilnius Small Theatre RIMAS TUMINAS is among the most prominent directors of contemporary Lithuanian theatre. After graduating from Moscow A. Lunacharsky Art Institute (GITIS) in 1978, next year Tuminas started his career at the State Academic Drama Theatre and stood out from the general repertory of this theatre already with his first works. In performances directed by Tuminas daily life turns imperceptibly into poetry, drama acquires a tinge of tender irony and every detail on the stage arouses the audience's emotions. His performances are dominated not by effects of directing, but by a playful improvisational acting of the actors. The most talented Lithuanian actors perform in the productions of the Small Theatre: Arvydas Dapsys, Egle Gabrenaite, Gediminas Girdvainis, Sigitas Rackys, Arunas Sakalauskas, Andrius Zebrauskas as well as the young actors, former Tuminas’ students. Foreign theatres eagerly invite Tuminas to work for them. As well Lithuanian productions by Tuminas have toured many countries and international festivals.
In 1994 for his performances Galileo, The Cherry Orchard and Smile Upon Us, Lord Rimas Tuminas was awarded the National Prize of the Republic of Lithuania.
In 1994 Lithuanian theatre critics elected the performance Smile Upon Us, Lord as the best performance of the season and Tuminas as the best director of the season.
In 1997 for his performance Masquerade based on a play by Mikhail Lermontov Tuminas was elected the best director of the year.
In 1997Masquerade received the Grand Prix at the international theatre festival KONTAKT’97, Poland.
In 1998 the President of the Republic of Lithuania awarded Tuminas with the Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas, 3rd degree, for his contribution to national culture.
In 1999 Masquerade received the highest award of Russian theatre Golden Mask for the best foreign performance shown in Russia.
In 2000 Tuminas was awarded the Prize of Russian Government for his contribution to Russian literature and art.
In 2000 We Perform Schiller based on Mary Stuart by Friedrich von Schiller produced at the Moscow Sovremennik Theatre was awarded the Seagull prize for the best performance of the season.
In 2004 Madagascar received the special prize of Lithuanian Ministry of Culture for the best production of national drama.
In 2005 Madagascar won the first prize at the Baltic Contemporary Drama Festival VIEW’05.
In 2005 Tuminas was awarded as the best director at the international theatre festival KONTAKT’05 for the performance of Madagascar.

D I R E C T O R ...

When one wanders to any historical context, one always returns to one’s childhood. We cannot perceive our continuity by limiting ourselves only with our date of birth. We all are from sometime ago. (...)
To create life on stage, one that is completely different from reality, but true and with its own laws. To create several independent theatrical stories in one play without changing the plot of that play. Only in that life, in those stories it is possible to grasp the perspective, to perceive the people. The most important thing in the art of theatre is imagination - not the idea of how to put together one or another scene, but imagination. It makes possible for the theatre to be born anywhere. The theatre must feel like a feast for the viewer, where he can savour the stratification of meanings, but at the same time - remember the impermanence of it and that it will come to an end.

R E V I E W S......

Preparing an atmosphere propitious to a creative work, the stage director was seeking to evoke forgotten sensations, associations and images lying in his memory. His favourite story about smoking sausages on a late Sunday evening in one of the autumns of his childhood does not make an exception to it, and could be considered as one of the elements of the prehistory of “Madagascar” - more than a simple allegory, it appears as the making of the image of a childish sensation accompanying the stage director throughout his life. It can be so that genial scenic metaphors are born at the moment when sensations, not willing to be silent, find finally a certain material image to settle in.
The stage director was seeking for some kind of perspective, as for a window to the world of universal sensations, in almost every episode of the play. Employing ingenuity insights and observations of everyday life, Rimas Tuminas was also trying to extract what he calls “a voice of an epoch”. During the rehearsals of “Madagascar” Rimas Tuminas developed an original philosophy of the sound: according to the words of Tuminas, everything in our lives and in the world we live in passes, disappears, and becomes forgotten; only the sound remains eternal. “Material” sounds discovered by the composer Faustas Latenas are also of great importance in the play: such are the sounds of the sea which penetrate to the church interrupting a sermon preached by Pakstas, a shrill singing of countrywomen, silent tings of bells, or a lyric folk song which dissipates the comic of situations, and finally these moments of silence, in which the Past meets the Present. Currently, they are not very abundant in number and appear more like subtle allusions to dramatic destinies of the nation and of the people which will become true in the second part of “Madagascar”.

Ramune BALEVICIUTE (Literatura ir menas)

In the play, Lithuania continuously being turned in the direction of the sea, becomes contracted to a little group of ghost prudes or to a pineapple, as large as a fist, or finally to two burning paper boats and their small blames evoke a great hope of the patriotic mercy.

Rasa VASINAUSKAITE (7 meno dienos)

"Madagascar” is laughing with admire and love for the people of an epoch in which one was able to live believing in although utopian, but very beautiful and ingenious fantasies. In a way as if it was tricking, this play manages to depict the Lithuanians in such a light that it is quite impossible to resist their charm.

Sarune TRINKUNAITE (Lietuvos rytas)

Vilnius State Small Theatre stands among the most attractive experimental spaces. Rimas Tuminas’ idea, cherished for a long time, to tell the Utopia of a non-legendary (due to this even more interesting) person, minister without a portfolio, theoretician and traveller Kazys Pakstas, was transformed by Marius Ivaskevicius into his own creative work’s kaleidoscope. (...) Visions of both Ivaskevicius and Tuminas have in common a similar approach to the Utopia of Kazys Pakstas: Ivaskevicius and Tuminas are especially cautious by treating it with irony as well as with an exaggerated heroism or nostalgia.

Indre DAUNYTE (Kulturos barai)

Using his own recipe, Marius Ivaskevicius has restored the epoch, ideas, and the language. He did this by condensing and accentuating the persons who incarnate this epoch in order to make such an image of the homeland Lithuania emerge, where all the men are interested only in affairs of the state and all the women - in nothing else except love.

Valdas VASILIAUSKAS (Kulturos barai)

There is everything possible and everything impossible at the same time in this universe by Marius Ivaskevicius which was directed by Rimas Tuminas very safely.

Peter JAROLIN (Kurier, Austria)

Those things which are national in Madagascar are universal at the same time. Human impotence facing the reality overshadows the various jokes. Pokstas, remarkably performed by Ramunas Cicenas, is both Thyl Uylenspiegel and John the full - that’s a telling combination of the archetype and our unfortunate contemporary. In comparison to usual new theatre, this Tuminas’s performance contains too much of the light. And in comparison to the traditional theatre - too much of the freedom and invention. But who needs the labels when one’s facing just alive, considered and temperamental theatre which doesn’t leave you unmoved.

Natalija KAMINSKAJA (Kultura, Russia)

.The management preserves the right to change the schedule