Vilnius State Small Theater invites you to the premiere - dir. Žilvinas Vingelis' performance based on the play "Orpheus" by French writer, poet, playwright, painter, prose writer, screenwriter, film director, graphic designer, pianist, interior and fashion designer, author of sculptures and surrealist objects, music and boxing manager Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) "(1925). AllMovie, an online database of film studies and information, described Cocteau as "one of the most successful and influential avant-garde filmmakers". According to film historian and host of Reel Pieces Annette Insdorf, Mr. Cocteau's "work is unparalleled in its diversity of artistic expression", and the National Observer said that he came from "a generation of artists whose courage launched the entire 20th century". for art, Mr. Cocteau was the closest thing to a Renaissance man.
"This play (original title "Orphée") is not only J. Cocteau's first large-scale work for the theater, but also the artist's first attempt to take on the theme of Orpheus, which later accompanied him throughout his creative life.in 1926 this play was staged in Paris by Georges Pitoëff, a French theater director of Armenian origin, with his wife Ludmilla Pitoëff. The scenery of the premiere performance was created by Jean Hugo, the great-grandson of the writer Victor Hugo, and the costumes were created by the French designer, founder of the Chanel fashion house and global fashion icon Coco Chanel. In his creative life, Mr. Cocteau collaborated and created with such artists of his generation as Erik Satie, Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire and others.
The plot of the play combines the traditions of classical theater, surrealism, Dadaism and visual arts. The historical and artistic significance of the play is indisputable, and there are almost no productions of it in the history of Lithuanian theater. According to director Ž. Vingelis, the main theme of the play is the contrast between reality and dream, life and death, creative ambitions and personal happiness.
The place of action is the home of a young family (Orpheus and Eurydice) in Thrace, which acquires the 20th century. Features of Paris in the 1930s. Orpheus, a surrealist stream-of-consciousness poet, aims to write a brilliant poem for an upcoming mass-popular poetry contest. His creative method is the questioning of a horse that has taken up residence in the house, hoping to reorganize all poetry. Forgotten and rejected, Eurydice finds solace in the company of glass Ertebiz. Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that neither Ertebiz nor the horse are what they seem...In the performance, it will be possible to see an ensemble of three generations of actors, intermediate stage solutions, as well as high-flying surgeons, the Guardian Angel working with glass, mirrors turned into doors to Death and other surreal images that have become part of the world created by J. Cocteau and the creative team of the play.
About the directorŽilvinas Vingelis - director of the Lithuanian theater, founder and artistic director of the audiovisual experimental theater "Kosmos Theater", coordinator of the creative programs of the Vilnius theater "Lėlė". From 2019 Žilvinas is the artistic director of the annual international visual theater workshop "Kosmos LAB" organized by "Kosmos Theater", and from 2021 - Coordinator of the annual contemporary puppet and object theater laboratory "SurReality Check" organized by Vilnius theater "Lėlė". In addition to visual and contemporary musical theater ("Kafka insomnia", "Lila: the secret game of the demiurge", "Sony's blues"), Žilvinas experiments with virtual reality ("Stranger", "Your Dream", "Life in Wanderings"), online art (" #Protest"), mobile applications ("Cosmos APP"), installations ("Cosmos Cars"), musical experiments ("Concert and installation for piano and furniture", "Work for piano, two cameras and seven objects"), contemporary opera (M. Nymanas "The man who supported his wife with a hat"), collaborates with Lithuanian video artists, representatives of visual arts and composers in interdisciplinary art projects. Ž. Vingelis is also a lecturer at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater and a doctoral candidate in art.in 2021 with the creative team was awarded the "Golden Cross of the Stage" in the Pandemic-Resistant Theater category
.Dir. Žilvinas Vingelis - 2023 the winner of the "DramaTest" competition organized by VVMT for the third year in a row, who presented a sketch based on J. Cocteau's play "Orpheus" to the judging panel.