LEDO VAIKAI | Birutė Mar (Solo Teatras)

Birutė Mar "ICE CHILDREN" (based on the memories of the author's parents and other 1941-1956 Lithuanian exiles in Siberia) Author, director and performer of the play - Birutė Mar
Composer - Antanas Kučinskas
Set designer - Kristina Norvilaitė
Costume designer – Indrė Pacėsaitė,
Video artist - Karolis Bratkauskas,
Assistant director - Sigita Mikalauskaitė
The play uses authentic fragments of exiled poems, motifs from D. Grinkevičiūtė's book "Lithuanians at the Sea of Laptev" and E. Gudonytė's "Karta nuo Sibiro".
The performance uses photos from the collections of the Lithuanian National Museum, KGB museums, the family archive and the drawings of exiled G. Martynaitis.
Choral music works were performed by the choir "AIDIJA".
The performance was created and performed (2015-2023.05 months) on the small stage of LNDT. From 2023 autumn - renewed Solo Theater performance.
Birutė Mar: "In 1939, after Germany seized the Klaipėda region, Soviet tanks rolled into Lithuania in June 1940, and the occupation of the USSR began. On the fateful June 14, 1941, about seventeen thousand Lithuanian people were deported - intellectuals, teachers, clerks, farmers. My young parents were also taken away with their families that day. Their fate determined them to grow up. in one yurt, on the icy promontory of the Laptev Sea.
It was only in 1998 that the Lithuanian Seimas adopted a resolution, a resolution and a law that legally defined Soviet deportations: "mass deportations of the population by the occupying state from the occupied country to its own - the occupier's - territory is one of the most serious war crimes". But back then it was even called a "humane action", the cleansing of the nation, "in order to suppress the resistance of the exploiting class".
The idea to create this performance arose a long time ago, it matured slowly, little by little, as I learned more and more about the exile. My parents' childhood was spent in the land of permafrost, they grew up in Siberia, by the Laptev Sea, but they never talked about it, did not tell, because talking about it was dangerous, forbidden, taboo. He probably protected his children from that experience, kept it in the deepest recesses of his memory. Only after 1991, when the publications of exiled memories appeared, I also learned about my parents' life there... At that time, a yurt - a "national" Lithuanian house, in which thousands of Lithuanians lived in Siberia - was built in the Rumšiškii Household Museum. Then I saw with my own eyes what my parents' childhood home was like...
The pain of grandparents and parents, as well as thousands of Lithuanians, remained deep, unspoken. I began to think about this performance as a kind of sacrifice, the experience of that hidden pain inside - a pain that still lingers in the nation's memory and raises fear, horror, the eternal question: for what? And danger, fear: what if history repeats itself tomorrow and we are torn from our land, home, history again?
It is said that when you go through it again, you say what is most depressing - you are relieved. There is no more fear and the terror that lurks inside like a monster. That's why we want to talk about it out loud, on the stage of the theater - to raise the "turf" of memory and tell about it to the next generation - so that it will find out where the unconsciously experienced fear and self-doubt lies in the genes of our nation. To bear witness to those who have not experienced the reality of the past, to give a unique lesson in surviving history.
Also, I want to experience the experiences of my parents on stage, to get to know and understand them more deeply, sympathize with them and perhaps - to liberate them. I dedicate this performance to them and to all those who have experienced an undeserved painful fate.
In the picture of the heroine of the play - a girl who grew up in exile - I put fragments of memories, details, experiences of my mother and other "Ice Children". Through the eyes of a child, the world is not yet damaged, does not know the pain of death, abuse, loss; with the beauty of the amazing northern lights, a magical Christmas in a yurt, making a tree out of sticks and decorating it with paper candies; with a dream to find a red lump that broke off from the girl's dress and rolled onto the tracks during the journey... I find this detail of my mother's memories very beautiful: just a "bump" on the rails - a lump on the dress, someone's life, the fate of many Lithuanian people..."
The duration of the performance is 1 hour. 20 minutes When buying 10 or more tickets, you can contact info@soloteatras.lt

Doors open: ~30 min. before the event
Event duration: ~1:20
Breaks: None
Children admitted for free: No
Discounts: for schoolchildren, students, seniors

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