The director Olga Lapina, awarded with two Golden Crosses of the Stage, and the actors of the Theater of Freaks, using the tales and short stories of Miloš Macourek, open the door to a particularly fragile and sensitive world - the experiences of a child taking his first steps at school in a new and unfamiliar system. Czech writer M. Macourek, the author of the legendary tales of Boniface's vacation and the hippopotamus afraid of vaccinations, testifies with his works that the child's privilege and main right is his imagination - his natural creative force. The writer's texts from children's literature are distinguished by unconventional images, playfully absurd story solutions and unexpected characters for the eyes of an adult, who move to the stage of the Keistulių Theater with the play "The Long Break".
The works reborn on the stage are connected by one theme - entering the first class. What happens to a small person who experiences the turning upside down of the environment and the system according to which he lived until now? The creative team of the show is looking for an answer to this question by using abstract space, aesthetics and looking for a connection between children's logic, language and relationships. "The most valuable thing we discovered in M. Macourek's work is the great respect for the child's inner world. The play reminds the audience that being in the school system cannot destroy the curious, inventive, fantasy-based nature of the little person, and after all, when a child comes to school, he experiences a constant conflict between how he should look and act and how he imagines himself. With "Long break" we continue the tradition of M. Macourek and perform a kind of theatrical investigation of the child's inner world", director O. Lapina shared her thoughts.
"The Long Break" is a performance not only for schoolchildren, for those who are talked about on stage; it is a work for all the people in their environment, parents and teachers, revealing a picturesque, constantly changing world in the eyes and mind of a child - completely different from what we see through the eyes of an adult. At the same time, it is a play for everyone who has ever experienced what it means to step out of your safe and slightly fairy-tale world into the big, different and terrifying school life.
