LITHUANIAN NATIONAL DRAMA THEATRE
Tadeusz Słobodzianek
"Our Class"
Translated from polish by Rolandas Rastauskas
Director – Yana Ross
Set designer – Marijus Jacovskis
Costume designer – Zane Pihlstrom (JAV)
Composer – Antanas Jasenka
The author of the video projections – Eglė Eigirdaitė
Light designer – Vilius Vilutis
Musicians: Darius Bažanovas, Edvardas Jucius, Algirdas Januševičius, Julius Račkauskas, Darius Žylė
Cast: Miglė Polikevičiūtė, Toma Vaškevičiūtė, Monika Bičiūnaitė, Rimantė Valiukaitė, Vaiva Mainelytė, Monika Vaičiulytė, Aldona Janušauskaitė, Daumantas Ciunis, Dainius Jankauskas, Tadas Gryn, Ramūnas Cicėnas, Paulius Tamolė, Gediminas Girdvainis, Algirdas Gradauskas, Tomas Žaibus, Valerijus Jevsejevas, Marius Repšys
Tadeusz Słobodzianek (born in 1955) is a Polish playwright, director, theatre critic, and the head of the Warsaw Drama Theatre (Teatr Dramatyczny). His plays have won two Edinburgh International Theatre Festival prizes Fringe First and three awards by the Polish Ministry of Culture for modern dramaturgy. In 2010 his play Our Class won the prestigious Nike Literary award and was ranked by European Theatre Convention among the best contemporary European plays written during 2009 and 2010.
The play depicts a group of classmates – Poles and Jews, whose story begins in the third decade of the 20th century, when their calm and care-free life is shattered by superstitions of anti-Semitism. After the break of the war the town is invaded by Soviets, later – by Nazis. The people react differently – most Poles choose to retreat to underground, however, some of them collaborate with NKVD or with Nazis. The Jews greet the Russians with relief, thus when the Nazis take over, most of the Jews are brutally murdered. Their former classmates take part in the murder, rape, torture and robbery, only few of them choose to help the Jews. After the war, some of the survivors of the massacre join the secret police, gaining an opportunity to take revenge on their former torturers. In the end, all the classmates, scattered through Poland, America or Israel, are trying to accept the reality.
Having worked in many different countries (Germany, Hungary, USA), the American director Yana Ross made her first appearance on the Lithuanian theatre stage in 2007 with Bambiland by Elfriede Jelinek, and since then she has staged eight more plays in Lithuanian theatres. According to Ross, although Our Class is set in Poland, instead of abstractly depicting Poland the play will aim at specifically showing Lithuania, while two different generations of actors, embodying the same characters, will create two different views of lives lived.
2019 April 11 d, Thursday, 18:00 hour
Tickets: 10.00 - 20.00 €