First LNDT premiere in 2025 - a play about manipulation "The Birds"

The Polish-French director and playwright Anna Smolar has been rehearsing at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre (LNDT) for some time now – she is working on a new premiere "The Birds", which will be presented on 14-16 March. Smolar is known to Lithuanian audiences for her play “Slow Motion”, which premiered at the National Art Gallery in 2019 due to the reconstruction of LNDT. The new work "The Birds" deals with similar themes - mechanisms of power and manipulation. This piece is inspired by the 2016 memoirs of Tippi Hedren, Hollywood actress and star of Alfred Hitchcock's films.

"Find the girl", commanded Hitchcock, one of cinema's most celebrated geniuses, with more than 50 films and 5 Oscar nominations, when he saw Tippi, un unknown model at the time, in a TV commercial. The film director, known as the master of suspense, immediately invited her to work together and cast her in the iconic roles of Melanie Daniels in “The Birds” and Margaret Edgar in “Marnie”. Hitchcock's relationship with Hedren was multifaceted: he became her teacher and mentor, but simultaneously controlled her every step, interfered in her private life, and isolated her from others.

The performance is a subjective reconstruction of the making of the film The Birds. Invoking the figures of threatening and wild animals, it highlights the dynamics of unsafe relationships made possible by ingrained toxic patterns in our societies and offers a heroine refusing the role of victim.

"Unlike in “Slow Motion”, the genius will not be present in “The Birds”, it is not the genius that attracts our attention. “The Birds” is a story about people who matured for a decision to leave a situation, to break a contract. The action takes place on a cinema set. However, while developing the concept and the script, we are trying to grasp universal mechanisms. This performance shows a story of resistance. It is much wider than the question of art and genius, we dig into the topic of, domination which is very prevalent in our society: in the workplace, in families, in romantic relationships, in friendships", says director Anna Smolar.

Director Anna Smolar. Photo by Rafał Paradowski

The script of the performance is written by Iga Gańczarczyk and by the director Anna Smolar herself. The set and costume designer for “Birds” is Anna Met, who has worked with Smolar on more than 20 performances, and is known to LNDT audiences for her work on “Slow Motion” and in “Drunks” by Iwan Wyrypajew. Two other long-time creative collaborators of Anna Smolar are also working on the production – composer Jan Duszyński and choreographer Paweł Sakowicz. The lighting design for “The Birds” is by Dainius Urbonis, and the video projections are by the Ville Seppänen from Finland, who worked on the LNDT performance “Broken Heart Story”.

The cast of "The Birds" includes actors from the company of Lithuanian National Drama Theatre: Rasa Samuolytė, Rytis Saladžius, Gediminas Rimeika, Augustė Pociūtė and Nelė Savičenko. All actors will represent multifaceted versions of Tippi – taking turns and challenging our perceptions of who plays the roles of victim and oppressor. They also will perform as birds or witnesses, inviting us to drop our binary #metoo perception, which mostly addresses the duo oppressor-victim. Is a witness also culpable? When are we less or more likely to act?

“The Birds” is co-produced by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland and ESPOO Theatre in Finland.

"This performance will be a love song to Hitchcock's cinema, because we are also having fun with the tools he proposed, the images, the fantastic humour that he shares with the audience. We just want to immerse ourselves in this universe and in this artistic material, to consciously see the boundary between the subject and the means, to see what is in the shade of many relationships, not only in art, not only in the workplace.

I think it is possible today to be a conscious feminist without stepping into the role of a judge, without withdrawing, without cancelling, continuing to consume art that we think is extraordinary, but at the same time saying 'no' to what we believe is unethical and violent," says the director.

The premiere of "The Birds" will take place at the New Hall of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre on 14, 15 and 16 March. More information - www.teatras.lt