Based on The Book of Sand and Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
Premiere March 8, 2019 Duration 1 hour 40 min Director of the young generation Adomas Juška, student of Eimuntas Nekrošius, made his bright debut in the State Youth Theatre (Vilnius) in 2018 with the performance Švejk based on Jaroslav Hašek's book The Good Soldier Švejk. At that time, Adomas Juška was a third-year student in Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. This season, Juška has presented the audience with his new work, based on the story of Jorge Luis Borges. The young director recreates the great writer's journey through life from the first moments of creative inspiration to reflections on his old age. On stage, like on a blank sheet, reality intertwines with dreams and from that fiction is born—the constant companion of a creative man. Director Adomas Juška: «This is not a biographical performance about Borges, although some parts of it will inevitably be biographical, as Borges often included himself as a character in his short stories. Most people in this performance are writers. Associations are important to me, as well as searching for magic realism. There is very little text in the performance. The action was born while working with the actors. During the rehearsals, a new story of human life was purified. I think that we create not just for someone to come and see it, but for more spiritual reasons. Not necessarily related to religion, but definitely related to the soul. I want this performance and its surrealism to lift the viewer somewhere above and beyond reality, above the usual context». Arūnas Sakalauskas, one of the most prominent actors in Lithuanian theatre and cinema, plays the main role of the writer: «This performance is about creation, which is also a fiction. People who are engaged in art and live in it are bypassing the creative circle of human age. Suddenly you find out that everything is very ephemeral, as if it has never happened. Especially in the theatre, where everything ends after the performance». «The most fascinating thing is that Juška does not provide answers, nor his opinion on certain thing happen. <...> The ability to not withhold judgements only adds to his language in terms of directing, <...>. Although Adomas is still in his fourth year of studies, there is nothing studenty about the performance. The stage of his imagination full of golden greyhounds and a river flowing from the sky might appear too beautiful, too poetic and sublime, but it is evidently mature, graceful and unique».
PRESS
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TEAM
Director — Adomas Juška
Set designer, author of theatrical adaptation — Adomas Juška
Assistant Director — Lukas Petrauskas
Actors
Andrius Bialobžeskis, Aleksas Kazanavičius, Arūnas Sakalauskas, Motiejus Ivanauskas, Augustė Šimulynaitė