Raimondas Klezys. RAMS (play for youth)

Playwright - Raimondas KLEZYS

Director - Justas TERTELIS

Set Designer - Indrė PAČĖSAITĖ

Composer - Matas SALADŽIUS

Cast - Raimondas KLEZYS

Actor Raimondas Klezys shares stories from his life with young audiences (the play is intended for teenagers aged 14 and up). Through tales of childhood, games, TV shows watched, and conversations with his grandmother, more serious themes are revealed, presented playfully and with humor.

In this intimate play, everyone can get involved as much as they want, and the audience's responses shape a different face of the performance each time. The ball used in the play becomes not just an element of the game, but a creative tool that allows the viewer to be drawn into a personal narrative through play – one that is open, sensitive, and invites self-recognition.

"Your father went to warmer lands and he is a ram," Raimondas's grandmother told him in his childhood. Are our parents really rams? Will we grow up to be different from them, or are we exactly the same? The one-man show "Rams" – a joint creation by actor and playwright Raimondas Klezys and director Justas Tertelis – invites reflection on resentment, anger, and forgiveness – topics that young people are not always brave enough to discuss with their peers.

Actor Raimondas Klezys says that expressions like "sheep herd" or "stupid as a sheep" are particularly often broadcast in schools. "You can feel like a real ram living in a herd, for whom everything is decided by a shepherd, whose equivalent in life can be anything – fate, God, a boss, etc. In this play, I want to shake up a young person's brain and ask the question: are you really doing, learning, and acting in a way you would like to in your life? Or is it just a culture of imitation, where you do things just because you have to. Just because those are the rules and that's how your great-grandparents, grandparents, or other relatives did it," explains Raimondas Klezys regarding the subtext of the title.

He adds that theater is a means to talk, befriend, and analyze. "Therefore, while performing this play, I involve the audience in live action, valuing what is happening here and now. In this way, I try to create a space where a young person is seen, heard, and important," says the actor.

The play "Rams" was awarded the "Golden Stage Cross" in 2024 as the best play for a young audience.

Producer: "No Shoes Theatre"