A slice of stage heaven indeed.Honestly, I was a little worried that this was going to turn out to be a yawner zzzzz.... for me and my fellow theatre friends. I mean, after all it's Romeo & Juliet, how much different could it be from the countless acts I have seen? I didn't even like the Di Caprio movie version very much. (In fact, R&J is not even one of my favourite Shakespearean plays). In addition, to my horror, after dragging 3 other friends along to book the early bird tickets for this, I realized that it was 200 minutes long, excluding intermission, and it was to be played at old Victoria Theatre, on a weekday night after a long day of work! I was however quite curious about the Lithuanian theatre company (am currently quite taken by Eastern European art generally), and this became the first performance that kicked off this year's Arts Fest for me.
But I think all of us enjoyed it very much and were riveted to our seats (except L who had to tear herself away to go fetch her daughter) throughout the entire performance.
It was a visual feast. Suddenly, my O-levels literature textbook jumped to life in front of my eyes, in the most delightful and unexpected way. Even though the whole thing was in Lithuanian, the director opened up the infinite possibilities of Shakespeare's words, through flying dough, metal objects, ropes, lights, and most importantly the human bodies which moved strongly throughout the play. The actors and actresses were fantastic. No matter how small their role was, they created pure chemistry together on that small stage, every one of the 200 minutes was pulsating with creativity and genius. It was a physically tactile play. And super funny too.
What impressed me most about the play was the amount of passionate effort put into it. OKT Vilnius is in fact only a small self-funded theatre company in backward Lithuania. They have kept themselves fiercely independent so as to be able to work their art without interference from the government.
You can really tell that these are a group of people who truly love their art, and have thought deep and hard about how they want to present it to the world. I am now curious about the people of Lithuania and the cultural scene there. Even though the original play was set in Italy (known for its passionate people) what I saw on stage were not Italians but a very interesting set of East Europeans who are passionate in a different way. They have a deep understanding of Western European theatre (despite the language difference) but have injected their own unique characteristics in it. I can't quite put a finger to it yet, but it's very attractive to me (in the same way that a lot of Eastern European art and music is starting to attract me).
It's physically sensual without being overtly sexual. It's intellectual without being pretentious. It's creative without being gimmicky. It's nationalistic yet universal.
What a great start to the Arts Fest this year.
