October

(Opinion) Nerijus Petrulis-Nerka
www.kamane.lt , 2007 10 02

Scene from the performance "Raven". Photo by D.Matvejevas

In brief: Others are angry but bitterness is really not necessary here. A.Liuga Production and Kaunas Drama Theatre have invited people, asked them to sit down politely and to turn off the mobile phones. People turned them off, concentrated and started to wait.

Some were waiting for the beginning, others – for a miracle. The funniest thing is that both groups of people have paid money for waiting from their personal pockets, for the work that was created not from the personal pockets of creators but from the funds collected from the ones who paid from their personal pockets. This is the funniest aspect about “Raven”.

While some people had enough patience to wait till the beginning of the performance and even the end, others confronted more difficulties – the loss of their expectations. In addition to the genius actor Vladas Bagdonas, the left blond from the LNK TV show Bicycle News Aldona Vilutytė also performed in the play. Irina Lavrinovič played a teenage girl at the end of the performance.

The play told a story about a man in his fifties meeting with a victim of his passed youth cravings – a former teenage girl who is a mature woman already and knows how to blackmail people well. Healthy men and people of sound morale call such plots “the joy of paedophiles”. The plot reminds of “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov; still, the literature of Nabokov is of much higher quality than the literature of the Scottish author David Harrower.

It is also very hard to believe that the play has been directed by Jonas Vaitkus himself. He has always taken interest in anomalies of human nature. This is proved by “King Ube”, “The Last”, “Richard II”, “Golgotha” and early Vilnius performances; however, the interest in such shallow details of morale bottom which are offered by the performance “Raven” is untypical of him.

The actors were good. Ray of Vladas Bagdonas who has already performed his punishment and the abused Una acted by A.Vilutytė played in a devoted manner. They have both learned much text and said it very fluently. V.Bagdonas has also charmed by the organics of acting. The girl had more problems – the feeling persisted: when will she close her eyelashes and the sound “cling-cling” be heard?

Having time, one may pity the old man crazy about a teenage girl and a blonde who is of free conduct by nature. However, aren't there more important problems in our life and theatre, for us to waste time pitying various sexual perverts? Old and Young? Male and female? This is why the author states that it is not worth feeling bitter about the performance presented by A.Liuga and directed by J.Vaitkus. One may only pity it. People did not notice that the bottom of creative conformism is not under the feet of the theatre and spectators but above their heads for a long time already.