Triumph of LNDT’s "The Silence of the Sirens" in Germany, Praise from Gregory Porter

Yesterday The Silence of the Sirens, a production of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, won the main prize at the International European Festival of Emerging Young Directors ‘Fast Forward’ in Dresden, Germany. The competition programme brought together the best emerging theatre creators from Hungary, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Serbia, and Lithuania.

The jury of the festival included influential and well-known theatre professionals: Anke Dürr, the long-standing cultural editor of Spiegel and a jury member of various theatre festivals (Germany), Lara Staal, a playwright and curator who has been working with the Kammerspiele Munchen and the NTGent theatres (the Netherlands), the stage director Data Tavadze, the winner of the Fast Forward festival in 2016 who is currently active in various theatres in Germany (Georgia), and Joachim Klement, the artistic director of the Staatsschauspiel Dresden (Germany).  

In the jury’s view, The Silence of the Sirens is convincing because of its courage and power to speak about hierarchical structures through a classical work and personal stories. It is an artistic work in which choreography and cabaret intertwine with authentic events. Conveying the painful experiences shared by a multitude of women in and outside the theatre requires a great deal of trust between the exceptional actors and the director. With this choice, the jury wishes to recognise the remarkably bold and empowering impact of these brilliant women.

The prize of the Youth Jury was awarded to the Belgian director Yasmine Yahiatène for her production La Fracture (The Fracture). The Audience Award went to El Candidato (The Candidate) from Spain.

Even before the announcement of the winner, the famous American singer, songwriter, Grammy winner Gregory Porter, expressed his admiration for LNDT’s production of The Silence of the Sirens, sharing his positive impressions both personally with the director and the artists and at his concert. The musician told his thousands-strong audience, ‘I was at a theatre festival and recently I saw a play called The Silence of the Sirens. A fantastic work. Here are the excellent actresses from that play in my concert, in the front row, but I didn't know they would be here. A wonderful, wonderful performance. You should watch it because the next show is tomorrow. I love all kinds of art, it inspires me.’

The Silence of the Sirens reveals #MeToo stories in the theatre field. Posing on a rock, four female actors open their island theatre and tell true stories from their working life, while waiting for ‘the great Odysseus’. They leave no dark detail out – not even the competition between them – and at the same time perform theatre: in costume and makeup, with sound and light, with bitter humour, passion, vulnerability, and plenty of reasons.

The tragicomic performance stars actresses Gerda Čiuraitė, Rimantė Valiukaitė, Toma Vaškevičiūtė, Aistė Zabotkaitė, and Jūratė Vilūnaitė, who, together with the playwright Teklė Kavtaradzė, created the text for the production.

The director of the best Fast Forward performance is invited to create a new production at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden, and now Laura Kutkaitė has been offered this opportunity.

‘Right now I’m sitting on a train back to my residence in Paris and I still don’t seem to understand what happened. All I know is that I am incredibly grateful to both the festival and the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre for inviting me to create a play right after graduation. My sincerest thanks to the entire artistic and technical team of the production, you are power to say the least, I bow before you. And most of all, I am grateful to all the amazing and incredibly brave women who shared their stories with me and Teklė and who trusted us. Your trust means everything to me. After the performance and the awards, people of all ages from different countries came up to us thanking us for the performance, some of them shared their own experiences within this topic. When, having seen the play, people start speaking up about what is still taboo, my heart fills up as it grasps the power of creativity. And it will keep filling up. For the meantime, I’m still dreaming’, the director Laura Kutkaitė shared her thoughts and emotions.

The winner of the main prize Laura Kutkaitė (b. 1993) studied choreography and philosophy and in 2021 graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre with a degree in directing. The Silence of the Sirens is her first work after graduation as part of the Young Creators Programme at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre in Vilnius. In June 2022, this performance opened the Small Hall that was newly built during the reconstruction of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre.

Gregory Porter talking about "The Silence of the Sirens":