The Crave for Love in the Nightmare of Life

As it is characteristic of many performances of Oskaras Korsunovas’ theatre, actors are already waiting for the audience on the stage. This time they do it – with their heads buried in their pillows. The light switches off then switches on and the audience is stunned by the unexpected scream out of the chests of the characters. It’s not a scream but a very deep breathing, like the one of a fish thrown out into the shore. They are all suffocating as if have just woken up from a horrible dream being unable to inhale air. During the whole performance they hold their pillows as if they constantly were dreaming, talking and laughing in their sleep.

There is no special setting on the stage. The whole mood and surroundings of the performance are created with the means of pillows and swinging lamps. In some point the pillows show the characters are dreaming. They are dreaming the nightmare of life. Is it predetermined to wake up from it? Is the whole life a dream and you’ll wake up only when you die? Suddenly the lamps light up the sleeping; they are turned to reveal the distorted faces, the naked body of a dancer. The feelings of the audience are sharpened this way. When the performance is over the characters rise up from their pillows, however, their faces, even when they are leaving the stage, stay depressed and tortured. It’s clear that the actors feel their characters deeply. You cannot underestimate the ability to convey the pain of loneliness and senselessness with the means of the scream, panting, insane laughter and the lighted up face expression distorted by pain which dives out of the dark.