Roger Vitrac. VICTOR, OR POWER TO THE CHILDREN, dir. Gintaras VARNAS

Translated from French by Vincentas Klipčius

Director — Gintaras VARNAS

Set Designer — Gintaras MAKAREVIČIUS

Costume and Makeup Designer — Juozas STATKEVIČIUS

Composer — Martynas BIALOBŽESKIS

Lighting Designer — Vilius VILUTIS

Assistant Director — Regina GARUOLYTĖ

Producer — Rugilė PUKŠTYTĖ

CAST

Victor, 9 years old — Šarūnas Rapolas MELIEŠIUS

Charles Paumelle, Victor's father — Vainius SODEIKA

Emilie Paumelle, Victor's mother — Miglė POLIKEVIČIŪTĖ

Lili, the maid — Radvilė BUDRYTĖ

Esther, 6 years old — Rūta JONIKAITĖ

Antoine Magneau, Esther's father — Marius REPŠYS

Thérèse Magneau, Esther's mother — Elzė GUDAVIČIŪTĖ

General Étienne Lonsegur — Vytautas ANUŽIS

General Étienne Lonsegur — Arūnas SAKALAUSKAS

Madame Ida Mortemart, The Great Lady — Aurelija TAMULYTĖ

Doctor — Povilas BUDRYS

With the play "Victor, or Power to the Children," director Gintaras Varnas seeks to continue his long-standing cycle of surrealist theater (Federico García Lorca’s "Once Five Years Pass," "The Public," "Sombras," Guillaume Apollinaire’s "The Breasts of Tiresias," etc.). The greatest directorial inspiration was the social criticism reflected in the work. According to the director, it could be a kind of chamber variation of Aldous Huxley’s "Brave New World."

The director speaks out against the primitivization and modernization of theater and, with his production, raises the question of whether a small person does not have the right to destroy the prevailing stereotypical and established social order. According to him, it is a witty satirical parable of the 1920s about a family and a false, hypocritical, cowardly, and philistine world of "well-being" created by parents, which is gleefully destroyed by rebellious little anarchists, nihilists, and hooligan children; therefore, it is to be expected that today, in the 2020s, it should resonate in a new way.

Roger Vitrac (1899–1952) was a French surrealist writer, playwright, and poet. Born in Pinsac, the creator moved to Paris in 1910. From 1922 to 1928, he participated in surrealist activities, published a Dadaist manifesto, edited the magazine "Aventure," and contributed to the first issues of "La Révolution Surréaliste."