December 31 In the youth theater, the play "Úbas Caras" by director Gintaras Varnas took place. Šepa of the XNUMXst century" based on Alfred Jarry's play "Karalius Úbas", premiere. Dramatist Sigitas Parulskis wrote the play especially for this performance. Actor Vytautas Anužis plays the main role of Úbos Caro-Putin. Scenography artist – Gintaras Makarevičius; doll artist - Julija Skuratova; composer - Martynas Bialobžeskis.
"Like many creators today, we are faced with a challenge - how to talk about the consequences of Russia's war against Ukraine, which has been going on for two years, on people and on the humanitarian sphere in general?" The plays "Erinijas" and "Barbaras" by foreign directors Sergej Loznica and Arpad Schilling, which appeared in the Youth Theater last season, were an attempt to do this in a broader historical perspective, expressing the public position of the theater. The performance "Ūbas Caras" directed by Gintaras Varnas will develop it in a different way and in a different artistic register", says the head of the Youth Theater Audronis Liuga.
G. Varno "Úbas Caras. Šepa of the 21st century", according to the director, should be funny, but by no means entertaining: "the two stylistic "foundations" of the play: Łab's world, where Łab-Putin lives, grunts, pushes, screams, barks and sings with his gang, and Šepa's theater - a closet that will hold "The World" from Macron, Orban, Scholz to Biden and Zelensky dolls. The West, whose mercantile and hypocritical relationship with the new Russian tsar allowed him to bully, feel equal among equals, and start military conflicts. In it, we, the free people, the free world, are proud of our values, we will defend them, but it is better that we don't have to..."
According to playwright S. Parulskis, the author of the play "Łabas Caras", "This is the story of a tyrant, or rather, the transformation of an ordinary, lowly official into a tyrant. The story of ugliness, banal mediocrity, banal evil incarnate. Absurd, but gory, which makes it not only funny, but also creepy. I like the relationship found with the documentary: the factual reality feeds the fictional, and the fictional summarizes, highlights and finally gives meaning to the factual reality. Evil is banal, although, unfortunately, it is insurmountable, because it is in each of us and, given the opportunity, acquires so much power and authority that it becomes difficult to control. I can't destroy evil, but I can laugh at it, and when I laugh, I feel a little better."
19th century at the end of the twenties, Alfred Jarry, a hooligan of the French artistic avant-garde, created a portrait of the militant idiot Ubo. Like no other, he became the 20th century. harbinger of the era of narcissistic dictators. The chaotic reality of the loser Úbos is an injection of the reality of revolutions and wars caused by dictators, the main characters of which sought not to change the world, but to consolidate their personal cult. Everything ended like Jarry described in the "Ubiad" - a big fiasco. Only with endless human sacrifices. Today we say that history has taught us nothing. On the contrary, its falsification inspires the wars of the 21st century. Dictators of modern times differ from their predecessors only in that they have made the falsification of facts and lies the main state ideology and "muffled" the consciousness of millions with it.
The most prominent interpretation of Jarry's play in the Lithuanian theater was in 1977. It was created by director Jonas Vaitkus at the Kaunas Drama Theater. The "King Łabas" of Kaunas at that time became a rebellious artistic action and a real challenge to the stagnation of the Soviet era. J. Vaitkaus's student G. Varnas relates his interpretation of "Karaliaus Úbos" to a completely different era, but he is no less opposed to the stagnation of the externally changed world of our time, where new dictators are establishing themselves. During the struggle for independence, no one was indifferent to the performances of the "Šepa" theater created by G. Varnas. According to the director, he stopped the activities of his "Šepa" theater "when life changed, the revolution of national liberation ended, when such a theater seemed to have lost its meaning. Then every now and then someone kept saying that Šepas should be revived. Even professor Irena Veisaitė persuaded to do it several times. But I never wanted to start it again. Until now, when I realized that such a theater, a political cabaret, is a wartime theater. Therefore, it makes sense to revive that tradition, which, by the way, is even earlier and goes back to 1939, when the Polish student "Szopka Wileńska" was active in Vilnius, and Hitler's doll (!), played in it, once again during the war in the XNUMXst century and with new characters" .
