Doctor and Mangaryta 2006 11 30 Vytautas V.Landsbergis. Dir. Vytautas V.Landsbergis, The Šiauliai Drama Theatre. Première – 12-04-2003

Print version

Doctor - Pranas Piaulokas

When a director with a good sense of humour looks at the uncensored folklore collected by the patriarch of the nation, and manages to infect the theatre company comprised of great actors with this joy of discovery, the best staging of National dramaturgy comes to life. It’s really worth going to Šiauliai and see it.

On the stage – a carnival. There are seven actors and five of them get a bunch of roles. Men reincarnate in several men and women, in devils, angels, witches. You peel the performance like an onion. The funeral of doctor Basanavičius (by Pranas Piaulokas) enframes the microperformances of the fairy-tales he had collected, the characters start telling their own stories, and the love story of the doctor himself is also inlaid there. (…)

The value of the performance is to die of laughter (…). And here laughter is organic, nothing is exaggerated, nothing stinks of village agitation brigade.

By Rūta Oginskaitė. Bouquet of Tulips on Wisp of Straw (Lith. Tulpių puokštė ant šiaudų gniūžtės). Teatras, Spring, 2004.

V. V. Landsbergis surprised everyone with his ability to connect the worlds of the living and the dead so easily, which he demonstrated while staging the performance From the Life of Souls (Lith. Iš gyvenimo vėlių). Here, in Doctor and Margaryta, like an alchemist he merges those two separate worlds without any stage crafts or technical tricks: the dead resurrect and die again, heaven and hell are very close to each other. Everything goes together: good and evil, sins and repentance.

By Daiva Šabasevičienė. Juozas Erlickas and Doctor Basanavičius. Performances of Šiauliai Drama Theatre in Vilnius (Lith. Juozas Erlickas ir daktaras Basanavičus. Šiaulių dramos teatro spektakliai Vilniuje). 7 meno dienos, 04-03-2005