OKT

Florian Zeller

THE MOTHER

Director - Kirilas Glušajevas

Composer - Gintaras Sodeika

Set Designer - Marijus Jacovskis

Cast:

Mother Anne - Rasa Samuolytė

Father Pierre - Dainius Gavenonis

Son Nicolas - Aurelijus Pocius

Girl Elodie - Augustė Ona Šimulynaitė

Florian Zeller is a contemporary French novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Back in 2004, the playwright won the Prix Interallié for his novel "Fascination of Evil". F. Zeller wrote a trilogy of plays: "The Mother. The Father. The Son". In 2020, the playwright himself directed a film based on the "The Father" part of the trilogy, starring Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman. The film received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and F. Zeller won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. "The Father" was also nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and six British Academy Film Awards. The playwright's works have also been recognized with theatrical awards - both "The Mother" and "The Father" were awarded the prestigious Molière Award in France. F. Zeller's biography includes more than ten written plays.

The daily life of the main character of "The Mother", Anne, is a cocktail of sleeping pills, diazepam, and alcohol, with which she tries to push away depression, and the home and family for whom she has lived until now. But how can a mother come to terms with the fact that her children have grown up, and learn to live for herself, take care of herself, and love herself?

According to the play's director K. Glušajevas, the axis of the play is the theme of a woman and the angle of this theme where a woman must be good to others: she must be a good wife, a good mother, a good daughter, but she does not know and cannot find the time for how and when to be good to herself. In this way, the mother treats her closest people as if they are weaker than they actually are, often using even harmful means to try to control them, presenting it as care and concern. No one ever taught the mother this or emphasized it - this is a rather deep psychological wound in our society, in the finale of which a person is left alone with themselves and their pain, not knowing how to proceed.