LNDT's HEROES SQUARE in Avignon - Triumph of Lithuanian actors in Lupa's latest masterpiece

The Lithuanian National Drama Theater has started its 77th season. Apart from the premieres, the theater also presents to the audience its most celebrated production of 2015 – “Heroes Square”. This summer, LNDT production participated in one of the largest and oldest international theater festivals – the Avignon Festival. In total, in the Vedène theatre the performance was shown six times. Krystian Lupa’s direction and the Lithuanian actors (Eglė Gabrėnaitė, Valentinas Masalskis, Eglė Mikulionytė, Viktorija Kuodytė, Rasa Samuolytė, Toma Vaškevičiūtė, Doloresa Kazragytė, Neringa Bulotaitė, Vytautas Rumšas, Povilas Budrys, and Arūnas Sakalauskas) fascinated both the audience and French theater critics, which resulted in over 70 publications on “Heroes Square” in the French media. Below you can find translations of excerpts from reviews that appeared in the most influential French daily newspapers. “Heroes Square” will be performed on the stage of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater on September 29 and November 13; in December, the production will travel to Paris.

 

The newspaper Libération (July 22), Anna Diatkine, a special correspondent in Avignon

Ghosts of war in “Heroes Square”

With virtuoso flair, Krystian Lupa has taken up the last play by playwright Thomas Bernhard, with whose work he is perfectly familiar, written in 1988 when Kurt Waldheim was elected President of Austria.

The tenderness is enchanting and surprising, Thomas Bernhard’s words are ten times stronger because they are spoken quietly with no intention of cursing or insulting anyone. The slow pace of the action causes the sense of speed and a common experience, wishing that these four hours would last longer, even start again, as the viewers are migrating in the audience, going up so they could admire the sets from above or have a closer look at the empty living room, listen to the quiet whisper of people in mourning after a mysterious suicide. Four hours and fifteen minutes – in fact, much less. Only three one-hour-long scenes and two intermissions. Yet we feel like we have been allowed to enter a place where the actors seem to be floating in a state of weightlessness, as if unaffected by gravity.

 

Indelible Traces

There is an old graffiti on the wardrobe. It is covered by material used for packing, but someone accidentally lifts it revealing a small swastika. Although barely visible, it tells enough. About the apartment owned by this Jewish family and the indelible traces of the ever-returning past.

Mr. Schuster’s wife is so mysterious that she only appears in the last act, and is the only one who hears the cheering of the crowd in Heroes’ Square. But is it at all possible to rent an apartment with windows facing the Heroes’ Square and not to think about killing yourself? Maybe the window alone is to blame for the suicide? In this very same square Adolf Hitler announced the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich to a sizable crowd of enthusiastic people on March 15, 1938. The cheering of crowds gathered in the Heroes Square, in the past and in the present, can still reach Professor Schuster’s apartment.

When the play by Thomas Bernhard was first staged in the Austrian National Theater it caused a huge scandal. The government immediately sought to censor it. What an honor to a work of drama and its power! The author of the play and the theater director triumphed because in the end the play saw the stage.

Nearly 30 years later, in the Avignon theater festival, at the Vedène theatre, it would be difficult to imagine that anyone could censor the play because it talks about a new rise of the Nazis, who have “begun to creep out of the holes that have been caulked for forty years” [1]. So the amazing artistry of Krystian Lupa’s directing and his Lithuanian actors revealed themselves, with a muted sound of marching soldiers in the background, reminding us of the growing populism and hate.

In fact, it does not matter whether you have seen all six Krystian Lupa’s productions of the Austrian writer’s plays or whether this will be your first encounter. It is not necessary to be a fan in order to get into this space, the theatrical sphere, and hear the openly but subtly uttered words of Bernhard that are as relevant as ever

 

Daily Le Monde (July 21), Fabienne Darge, the special correspondent at the Avignon Festival

Krystian Lupa was hunting ghosts in Avignon

We can safely say that the duet of Krystian Lupa and Thomas Bernhard opened a new page in contemporary theater history.

In 2015, Bernhard’s “Woodcutters” directed by Lupa premiered at the Avignon Festival, while this year the Polish director presented a new masterpiece, based on a play by T. Bernhard – the famous “Heroes Square”. On July 18, the audience rewarded the premiere of the extremely profound performance with a long standing ovation. Four hours had passed like a dream.

This is the seventh time that Krystian Lupa returns to Bernhard’s oeuvre – this time with the troupe of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater he produced the last play written by his favorite author.

 

An incredibly mysterious world

Although the play is informed by real events that took place in Austria, there is a much broader and more universal dimension to it – the one Krystian Lupa sought to portray on the stage, creating one of the great atmospheres whose secret is known to him alone. First, the hyper-realistic, even surrealist atmosphere created in the large and empty apartment of the Schusters, is one of those flats that in itself are a metaphor for the spirit of Mitteleuropa.

The park has a unique atmosphere too. It is covered in fog just as the people’s minds and common sense are. Krystian Lupa uses video projections like many other artists at the Avignon festival, but masters them like a genius. Thanks to him, we find ourselves in an environment that may be both real and imaginary. We see an image of a city in winter. It may be Vienna or Vilnius, or Krakow, or Paris or... Avignon.

As always, when attending a play directed by a true artist – Krystian Lupa is undoubtedly one of the last of the great Eastern European directors, gifted with extraordinary theatrical abilities – we find ourselves in an utterly mysterious and quiet world. While Bernhard filled his drama with curses, Lupa staged it with mesmerizing tenderness, which paradoxically makes the play even more powerful.

Valentinas Masalskis is outstanding as Professor Robert. Other actors are also brilliant, especially Eglė Gabrėnaitė, who plays Mrs. Zittel, the housekeeper. The Lithuanians are no worse than the director’s Polish actors – they recreated Bernhard’s world, his piercing insights and language with extreme virtuosity and an extraordinary personal touch. So once again, a play directed by Krystian Lupa transcends the limits of a mere theatrical event bringing us to the realm of new, authentic and collective experiences.

 

 “L'Humanité” (July 20), Marie-José Sirach, special correspondent

In Europe the Blackbirds are Waiting for Their Hour...

In the play based on the “Heroes’ Square” – wonderful acting and scenography help create an atmosphere of oppression, helplessness and anger. The performance is cruel and pessimistic, one that diagnoses the condition of our world.

At the Avignon Theater Festival the Polish director Krystian Lupa together with a group of Lithuanian actors presents the play “Heroes’ Square” by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. It is a prophetic performance that speaks about recurring outbreaks of fascism.

Robert Schuster is Thomas Bernhard’s alter ego. He also reminds of the Polish director Krystian Lupa, who is concerned about the rapidly growing popularity of nationalism and fascism in Eastern European countries and Europe in general. This director is perfectly familiar with Thomas Bernhard’s body of work. To him it is like an inexhaustible source of insight, rigorous assessment and concerns about the world plagued by xenophobic distress that provide food for his theater.

Krystian Lupa stops time, causes it to slow down, it may shock you – but it is so necessary! – So that the theater could once again become a space for thinking and the viewer could break free from the ever-accelerating time.

Hatred and Xenophobia: are again boldly looking for their place

Excellent performance of Lithuanian actors (it is their first cooperation with Krystian Lupa), the set designs, music – everything to create an atmosphere of oppression, helplessness and anger. Lupa chooses an outline and strict sterility. Silence helps him stop another rant of the angry old uncle and to report yet another defeat of common sense, which is, hopefully, only temporary. It reminds us of the recent events. Austria in the future may choose the extreme right-wing president. France to is again faced with hatred and xenophobia. “Heroes’ Square” is a cruel and pessimistic performance in which the condition of our world is diagnosed with a cold glance. Artists and poets make threatening warning signals. It only depends on us whether we will listen to them... 

 

La Croix (July 20), Didier Méreuze, special correspondent

Krystian Lupa’s Ingenious Directing

The idea to direct “Heroes’ Square” may seem as balancing on the edge of political correctness or even funny because it creeps into your head and makes you think about it all the time. Only such an extremely clever theater director as Krystian Lupa can be entrusted with carrying out a task that smells of a potential scandal, a year after he staged Bernhard’s “Woodcutters”.

Choosing the constantly changing, but always purified set designs, dominated by gray color (the empty living room, the park, the dining room), the director prefers the so-called banality of life to ranting, and he succeeds to subtly prolong the time and give everyone the opportunity to distance themselves from their own problems and ponder on what is going on in Austria, France, etc.

No special effects, only a man about to kill himself ironing his shirt in a video projection, or ominously croaking blackbirds. The characters of the play speak the bitter truths of Bernhard in an almost peaceful and calm tone. As a result those truths become so obvious as if they were uttered not by the character, but by the actor himself. At the same time, they are all the more shocking. The scary truths check our boundaries.

Talented and extraordinary actors

Bernhard’s statements resonate even more forcefully because they, as well as the silence, are wonderfully conveyed by the brilliant actors of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater: black-clad Viktorija Kuodytė and Eglė Mikulionytė, one of them constantly rebellious, and the other – almost mute; Eglė Gabrėnaitė, who plays the governess; Vytautas Rumšas and Neringa Bulotaitė who play friends of the family; Doloresa Kazragytė, who plays the widow who keeps on reliving the nightmare – the cheering of the crowd and Hitler’s speech that can be heard at the end of the play until it is drowned in the all-encompassing noise.

In addition, the talented Valentinas Masalskis appears in the play as the sisters’ uncle, the brother of their father who had killed himself. He appears in the park wearing a beret, stoop-shouldered, walking with two canes, at first sight seeming like a dull and insignificant character.

But as he speaks, he gradually becomes more and more sarcastic, serious, despondent, ready to break into a rant at any time. If only he were not so jaded. When he says “The aim is to no longer be”, “Death is the only solace”, he becomes Thomas Bernhard’s alter ego.

 

Inrockuptibles (July 22), Patrick Sourd

The Last Will

Krystian Lupa has directed “Heroes’ Square”, the last and arguably strongest play by Thomas Bernhard. However, going through all the stages of mourning, it is reminiscent of a funeral rather than political criticism.

Everyone agrees that Krystian Lupa is Thomas Bernhard’s the most sensitive exegete. Having produced “Heroes’ Square” with a wonderful team of actors of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater, the Master from Poland has once again proved how sensitively he can feel communion with the Austrian playwright.

During the Austrian presidential elections held in May 2016 the far-right party candidate was nearly elected. 28 years after the play “Heroes’ Square” was written, we still need Thomas Bernhard’s expose talent. However, as history has proved that the playwright was right, it is no longer shocking, and the author can only pretend to be an ominous prophet, who only states the fatality of the actual situation. All Krystian Lupa has to do is to make us listen to the play as if it were read, provided we are not confused by its sharp corners, which have caused so much controversy.

We could say that Thomas Bernhard, already knowing he was doomed, predicted that the “Heroes’ Square” is the mourning ritual he would wish for himself. Krystian Lupa chooses precisely this interpretation. He employs all of his widely known theatrical wisdom to uncover a special transparency of thinking, which allowed the playwright to describe the reactions his death would cause. Just as a stone thrown into the water causes circles, so the play reveals how a growing circle of emotions gradually expands.

The ceremony, very poignant due to the precision of its style, during which Lupa pays tribute to Bernhard, makes “Heroes’ Square” a funeral ritual in which Bernhard is buried each time the performance is shown. It seems that with his death Thomas Bernhard found a way to continue to torment us.

Relentlessly ending with the shouts of the crowd that sounded in the Heroes Square in 1938 sinking into unbearable noise, as if adding fuel to the fire, the play justifies the black hole of disappearance as we hear the screams of the nightmare eagerly anticipating the exorcist.