UŽBURTAS KALNAS. Rež. Krystian Lupa

Thomas Mann

Director: Krystian Lupa
Scenography designer: Krystian Lupa
Staging author: Krystian Lupa
Lighting designer: Krystian Lupa
Costume designer: Piotr Skiba
Composer: Wladimir Schall
Video director: Natan Berkowicz
Video operator: Nikodem Marek
Video designer: Stanislaw Zielinski
Assistant directors: Oskar Jacek Sadowski, Tauras Čižas
Rehearsal translator: Gabriele Andruskevich
Scripts from Polish translation: Živilė Pipinytė
Played by: Donatas Želvys, Matas Dirginčius, Valentinas Masalskis, Viktorija Kuodytė, Aleksas Kazanavičius, Sergejus Ivanovas, Alvydė Pikturnaitė, Aušra Giedraitytė, Janina Matekonytė, Aušra Pukelytė, Ignas Ciplijauskas, Paulina Taujanskaitė, Matas Sigliukas, Neringa Bulotaitė, Gintautė Rusteikaitė, Rūta Jonikaitė, Aistė Rocevičiūtė, Gabrielė Andruškevič

The Youth Theater started its 60th season with the premiere of director Krystian Lupa's play based on Thomas Mann's novel "The Enchanted Mountain", which saw the world exactly 100 years ago .

One ​​of Thomas Mann's great works was seen on the Lithuanian theater stage for the first time. It is special that it is staged by the Polish director Krystian Lupa, one of the last active Mohicans of the oldest generation of European theater. For this production, the director gathered an international creative team and a considerable ensemble of actors, most of whom are actors of the Youth Theater troupe.

The premiere of "The Enchanted Mountain" took place at the Salzburg International Festival on August 20. 5 performances are shown in Salzburg's historic Landestheater. One of the world's most authoritative forums for performing arts is also the co-producer of the "Enchanted Mountain" production. The tour of the play from Lithuania at the Salzburg Festival, where only the premieres of the world's most outstanding opera and drama theater artists are presented, is an exceptional case in the history of our theater. Its uniqueness is emphasized by the fact that the Lithuanian theater presented the interpretation of one of Thomas Mann's most important works to the German audience. "Enchanted Mountain" concluded the drama program of this year's festival. Lithuanian viewers saw the premiere of "Enchanted Mountain" at the Youth Theater on September 20.

Having started writing "Enchanted Mountain" as a short satirical story for a magazine on the eve of World War I, Mann stopped working because of the war. He later admitted that the war had immeasurably enriched the content of the book. After the war, the writing of "Enchanted Mountain" basically began, acquiring a completely different ambition. The novel appeared only 12 years later, in 1924. Calling Enchanted Mountain his life's work, closest to his own personality, Mann said that the novel most embodies a leitmotif, a magical formula that links the past to the future, the future to the past.

Journey is the key word of Krystian Lupa's creative method. This is a journey into the unknown. It is based on research and collective work penetrating the mysteries of the literary work and the human psyche. In the case of The Enchanted Mountain, it is primarily a journey into Mann's own personality and his secret connections with the main character of Hans Kastorp. For Lupa, the important fact is that Mann did not experience his hero's path, but he wanted to experience it, and for this he had to design it for himself, based on other people's experiences and written sources. This writing journey became more real for Mann than his real family life, which hides his true passions.

For Krystian Lupa, it is important that the play conveys what "Enchanted Mountain" meant to Thomas himself. For Mann and the world in which he was created. Also, that it reflects the very circumstances of the creation of the performance. Lupa imagines her performance in two acts. In the first, we would see the world before the war, and in the second - already affected by the experience of the war. Through the dramatic contrast of the two acts, the director aims to show the evolution of the world from the manners characteristic of the 19th century and the optimistic belief in the human mind and new technological discoveries of the beginning of the 20th century to all the collapse of illusions and deep anxiety about the future of the world, close to today...

Interpreting "Enchanted Mountain", Lupa is based on Mann's frequent use of the pronoun we, which suggested the character of the collective narrator. In the performance, he will be embodied by individual characters who become narrators at different moments of the performance. To name the collective narrator, Lupa uses the metaphor of painting. Each individual character with is like a brush. Three brushes have become on the stage, and seventeen are waiting for their turn... Everyone has a hunger for life and experience. Similar to the one Thomas Mann gave his hero. Therefore, on the one hand, Hans Kastorp is a product of Mann's imagination and self-identification. On the other hand, – self-identification of the actor himself, as an opportunity to be himself. It gives birth to a hunger to tell something personal... It is from this general hunger that the narrator of "Enchanted Mountain" should be born, as a person of our time.

In the play "Enchanted Mountain" the main The role of Hans Kastorps is played by young actor Donatas Želvys. Other roles - actors Matas Dirginčius, Valentinas Masalskis, Viktorija Kuodytė, Aleksas Kazanavičius, Sergejus Ivanovas, Alvydė Pikturnaitė, Aušra Giedraitytė, Janina Matekonytė, Aušra Pukelytė, Ignas Ciplijauskas, Paulina Taujanskaitė, Matas Sigliukas, Neringa Bulotaitė, Gintautė Rusteikaitė, Rūta Jonikaitė, Aistė Rocevičiūtė.

"Enchanted Mountain" is director Krystian Lupa's third production at the Lithuanian Theater. Thanks to Lupa, Lithuanian theatergoers discover a new world of theater and prominent 20th-century artists. literary continents of writers Thomas Bernhard, W.G. Sebald, Thomas Mann. This is one big journey that encourages its participants to look for new ways of theatrical storytelling and to raise fundamental questions about man and the tasks of theater in our time.

The show is created in cooperation with the Salzburg Festival.

Premiere: 2024 September 20
More about the performance

Discounts do not apply to tickets to premieres, educations and performances and events held by other organizers in the Youth Theater. Students, schoolchildren and seniors must present a relevant document - a student, schoolboy or pensioner's certificate - at the entrance to the Youth Theater together with the ticket. Those who do not submit certificates confirming the right to a discount will not be allowed into the theater, and the money for the tickets will not be refunded.

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