Scene

In brief: Promises make a good supplement to food. They may be of different consistence, colour and flavour. They may grant exceptional qualities to food and may spoil it. What does it have in common with sauce? The word sauce was used as a joke before the premiere of the performance “Promise at Dawn at Kaunas National Drama Theatre on October 4 and 5. Even the reading of the novel “Promise at Dawn” of Romain Gary did not help to forget the joke. Still, after watching the performance no thoughts about gravies remained.

Agnė Sunklodaitė directed the performance and wrote the staging of it. The novel does not only serve as the standing point for the performance: the plot (relation of mother and son) and the language of characters is used. The autobiographic work invites to borrow the language style of the writer and entire paragraphs.

The beginning of the performance promised one more interesting solution: the main character had to be triple rather than double. The separation of actors (Jūratė Onaitytė and Sigitas Šidlauskas) from their characters is emphasised in the first scene. Still, as the performance developed, this separation disappeared, although it could have created more sincerity, reality, the novel would have been rendered very personally. Nonetheless, sensitivity was not missing in the performance.

The impression remained after the performance that the novel overcame it. The shadow of an original idea remains but some old solutions should have been refused: stylised costumes saying little, set design and music as well as waving of flags or planes making circles, which were seen in other performances. Also, the director should have asked actors not to act and to personalise the story of mother and son.

In general, the performance could not serve as the main dish. It is rather an easily digestible sauce for the ones who want to rest and fear to take a book to hands.