Oskaras Koršunovas looks at the comedy by Moliere from the perspective of modern day: he supplements it with pertinent cultural contexts and allusions to politics of today. The director diagnoses Tartuffe is me as a disease caught by our politics, and spread to the vast majority of the public. Thus, the deception of Tartuffe takes place not only inside the content of the play, when Tartuffe makes a fool of Orgon, but also in its form, when the actors are playing with the audience. The green labyrinth created by Vytautas Narbutas creates circumstances for theatrical action that easily turns the idea of the actors and the director into a comedy.

 

Tartuffe is a sanctimonious scoundrel who, professing extreme piety, is taken into the household of Orgon, a wealthy man. Under the guise of ministering to the family’s spiritual and moral needs, he almost destroys Orgon’s family. Elmire, Orgon’s wife, sees through Tartuffe’s wicked hypocrisy and exposes him.

 

Oskaras Koršunovas was born in Vilnius, Lithuania. He began his career as a theatre director in 1994 at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, where he obtained his master’s degree in directing. For his work, Oskaras received the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts in 2002, the Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities in 2002, the Meyerhold Prize in 2010 and national Golden Cross Awards in three different years 2004, 2011 and 2012. He has produced and directed over 70 plays. Also he has participated in festivals worldwide including the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival and the Festival d’Avignon.

 

The story of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre began on the 6th of October, 1940, when the play “Hope” by Dutch playwright Herman Heijermans was performed in the then Vilnius State Theatre on Basanaviciaus St. 13. The main visual motif of the play – a fisher’s boat – has become the emblem of the National Theatre. Since 2005, the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre has organized the national drama festival “Versmė” (The Fount). The aim is to promote the development of Lithuanian dramaturgy, and raise the interest of theatre professionals and the public in national playwriting.

 

“The separation between theatricality and the Brechtian conditionalism that destroys it here seems to have been chosen as an essential expression of tartuffeism, which reveals not only the moral hypocrisy of the characters, but also the collisions of role perception that define the relationship between illusion and play, deception and truth, mask and camera.”

 

The character of Tartuffe played by Giedrius Savickas is the cheeky personal astrologer of Orgon (Salvijus Trepulis). One could compare him to the traditional Lithuanian folk tale character, the fiend pinčiukas – good­looking, sharp­eyed, with no horns, no hooves, having if not a hump, then at least a belly, driven by a plain desire to steal from the calm, knucklehead Lithuanian his immortal, his one and only... Now, like before, the slow Lithuanian Orgon does not appreciate his divine sparkle, nor does he even know he has one. So, we can only burst into Ho­ meric laughter as we witness the “divine” essence masterfully sucked from him.”

 

Director/ Oskaras KORŠUNOVAS

Set designer/  Vytautas NARBUTAS

Costume designer/  Sandra STRAUKAITĖ

Composer/  GintarasSODEIKA

Video designer/  Algirdas GRADAUSKAS

Choreographer/  Vesta GRABŠTAITĖ

Light designer/  Eugenijus SABALIAUSKAS

Director‘s assistant/   Antanas OBCARSKAS