The first performance of the 59th season premiere of the Youth Theater "Úbas Czars" is an original variation of the political "Šepa" theater by director Gintaras Varnas based on the plays about Úbas by the French writer Alfred Jarry. Jarry's most popular play "King Úbas" was written in the 19th century. at the end Úbo's character 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.
Übas is a typical Mediocrity, Mekysta. André Breton's interesting and quite accurate insight that Ubas is Z. Freud's "Id" - "THAT" (as opposed to "ego"), some kind of average of the most primitive human part, related to primitive instincts - power, authority, wealth, etc. pursuit At the same time, Úbas is a certain common denominator of the primitive that captivates the masses. Or maybe this is exactly what the masses need, because his primitive personality is very close to them? Úbas is also a phenomenon of perfect adaptability - it blends like a chameleon with the environment in which it finds itself and, if necessary, becomes invisible. Don't you look like today's Tsar of Russia? - asks G. Varnas, the director of the performance.
The play "Łabas Czars" is an attempt by the director and his team of talented creators to return to the genre of the political "Šepa" theater revived by G. Varna during the struggle for independence, and through it to look at the reality of today's world.
in 1988 at that time, still a first-year directing student, G. Varnas, together with his fellow students, recreated the traditions of the "Šepa Theater" dating back to 1939, when the Polish student "Szopka Wileńska" was active in Vilnius. The new performances of "Šepa's Theater", which existed for just a few years, became a prominent cultural-political phenomenon in our country. In the performances "Lullabies of the Revolution" and "Communist Nostalgia", the actors controlled several politicians' puppets: the upper shelves of the "Shėpa" (or simply "closet") displayed caricatures of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Dzerzhinsky, Gorbachev, who fought against Landsberg, Brazauska, Prunskiene, Šepetis , Juozaitis and other figures of resurgent Lithuania. Angel and Giltinė watched everyone's actions.
The director G. Varnas remembers that the activity of the Šepa Theater ended when life changed, the revolution of national liberation ended, when such a theater seemed to have lost its meaning. After that, from time to time someone kept saying: "we should revive Šepa". 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...
