In Lithuania, there is one theatrical creator who can dare to remind the modern audience of the natural need for truth and justice, and, through his productions, shake up and wake up a society that has fallen into a slumber, fed up with entertainment and lies – this is director Jonas Vaitkus. The director defines the genre of the performance as ‘a futuristic metamorphosis and a farewell concert’. This production was inspired by the early works of a great lyrist and classic of Russian and world literature, Mayakovsky (1893–1930) – specifically his play in verse Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy (1913) as well as two poems: A Cloud in Trousers (1914) and Backbone Flute (1915). It is symbolic that creative work of the great poet returns to the stage of The Old Theatre of Vilnius – in 1962, director Leonid Lurje staged Mayakovsky’s The Bedbug in our theatre. 

 

Mayakovsky’s peculiar style was forming at the junction of complex and dramatic artistic exploration efforts at the beginning of the 20th century. The schools of avant-garde literature and art of that time sought to create the art of the future – futurism, which denied and despised the culture of the past, the norms of traditional society; which exalted the rapid industrial rhythm and professed the true cult of megacities. The poet’s early poetry is saturated with inner dualism, contradictions: of the loneliness of the lyrical hero and the unquenchable longing for people; of the power of art and its inability to change the course of being; of a negative view of the present and the uncertainty of the future. The conflict of the lyrical hero with reality, permeating the structure of all the futurist poems, becomes particularly relevant and recognisable in the context of the 21st century. 

 

In order to stage The Thirteenth Apostle, or A Cloud in Trousers, director Vaitkus rallied the entire company of The Old Theatre of Vilnius and enlisted the help of an associate involved in his legendary productions, artist Jonas Arčikauskas. According to the artist responsible for scenography and costumes, in the new performance, “Mayakovsky is not only relevant, but also directly illustrates our current life. Our society is dominated by whim and money worshipping, and relations between people have become a caricature. All of this can be read in Mayakovsky’s poetry written a hundred years ago. Also, there is a desire to remind in theatrical language about the poet’s definition of talent and to elevate it. Even if we hate his poems, we are affected by them. Talent, people and idea – these are the concepts between which our performance should emerge.”