It is not for the first time that the names of the set designer Jurate Paulekaite and the actor Dainius Gavenonis appear in the repertoire of OKT/Vilnius City Theatre among the credits of “creators of the performance”. In 2006 they were part of the artistic team of “Make-Up Opera” by Birute Mar, in 2007 created “Together” after the play by Daiva Cepauskaite (presented in the “Sirenos” program of 2007), and this time their joint work was inspired by the actress and composer Brigita Bublyte’s musical composition on the theme of the ancient Lithuanian fairy tale “Goddess Wife”.

In the words of Jurate Paulekaite, “This initiative is like a professional testing of our possibilities. We are theatre professionals, but we felt an urge to stray from the centre. To go ourselves and take the audience with us to another, different realm, without knowing beforehand if there are any discoveries waiting there.”

“Closet Scene” is a hermetic performance. As our society is growing more open, and theatre – more social, quite different things catch our interest. Things that cannot be interpreted in only one sense, and whose perception is very individual. And this time we find it interesting to seek communication with a separate individual rather than a group of audience, on the themes that are based on very personal experience. The actors imitating a séance of hypnosis will invite the audience to watch a dream.

And the team assembled for this experiment consists of people who, according to our guess, could be interesting to each other and could work together on conditions when there are no authorities and no guarantees that the dramaturgy of the performance is created together and each one is responsible not only for his or her fragment, but also for the whole of the performance. It is also important that we wanted to experiment with mature people, professionals who can afford themselves to risk.”

“Closed Party” is a stage work delving into waters quite different from the theatre based on traditional dramaturgy or seeking inspiration in social reality. A spectacle imitating the logic of a dream seeks to communicate with another part of the spectators’ consciousness than rational perception. This associative musical performance addressing the intuitive powers of the audience (perhaps this is how the genre of the “Closed Party” could be described the most precisely, also adding that it is a performance of “live sound”, i.e. accompanied by live singing and playing) invites the spectator at least for one hour to forget everything what he or she has known about theatre, and to set off on a journey together with its creators.

Alma Braskyte, www.menufaktura.lt

Set designer
Jūratė Paulėkaitė

Composer
Brigita Bublytė

Video artist
Aurelija Maknytė

Light designer
Eugenijus Sabaliauskas

Light and video operator
Vilius Vilutis

Sound operator
Virginijus Bagdzevičius

Technician
Mindaugas Repšys
Justas Vitartas

Light technician
Viktoras Zemeckas

Costumier and properties operator
Edita Martinavičiūtė

Musicians
Ana Cekasina (violin),
Vytis Nivinskas (double-bass)

Cast
Brigita Bublytė
Povilas Budrys
Dainius Gavenonis
Vaidas Vilius
Aleksas Kazanavicius
Remigijus Vilkaitis

Premiere
2008 April 23