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A HUNGER ARTIST
to Hunger Artist is the latest production of Meno Fortas, the theater company based to Vilnius founded from one of Europe's greatest theater directors, Eimuntas Nekrošius, acclaimed by his audiences and winner of numerous awards abroad for his innovative interpretations of classic plays, from Shakespeare to Chekhov, and literary works, such as The Song of Songs and Dante's The Divine Comedy.
Dinner is served!
But will anyone eat?
Eimuntas Nekrošius' stage version of Kafka's last short story, to Hunger Artist, would absolutely take by surprise even that viewer who had read all the most authoritative analytical essays written on this'opera.
Watching the play unfold on stage, one finds oneself several times hinting at an uncertain smile - joyless, as is the case when dealing to with most of Kafka's writings. And one also experiences a kind of slight cognitive dissonance in seeing a female "fasting artist" instead of the male character created from Kafka. And one might wonder why Nekrošius' protagonist always roams free while kafka had described his protagonist imprisoned in a cage.
Literary critics, in attempting to analyze this short story by Kafka, have lavished a thousand interpretations to find its innermost meanings, from the possibility that it could be the tragedy of an artist rejected by the public to that of a man attempting to overpower God. In any case, whichever version is correct, the theatrical interpretation of the splendid Viktorija Kuodytė and the trio of actors who flank her - Vaidas Vilius, Vygandas Vadeiša and Genadij Virkovskij - is so powerful and engaging from that it leaves the audience with neither time nor desire to dig through the different philosophical meanings, at least until to when the performance ends.
And all to of a sudden, you find yourself listening to a song from your childhood sung by the "fasting artist," or to attempting to understand a short medical essay on digestion -- and, without almost being surprised, it all seems and sounds absolutely natural. Just that ascetic minimalism so in tune with Kafka. And, above all, the four performers on stage evoke, almost incessantly, what some call chills of the soul.
by Franz Kafka
directed by Eimuntas Nekrošius
scenes Marius Nekrošius
costumes Nadežda Gultiajeva
with
**Viktorija Kuodytė **to Hunger Artist
**Vygandas Vadeiša **.
**Vaidas Vilius **
Genadii Virkovsky
assistant director **Tauras Čižas **.
sound designer **Arvydas Dūkšta **.
light designer Audrius Jankauskas
toolmaker Genadij Virkovskij
product from **Less Fortas Theatre **
With the support of the **Lithuanian Culture Council**.
production in Italy** Aldo Grompone**
to Hunger Artist and the Three of Her Men
"A fasting artist" and his three men.
Born in 1952, he graduated from Lunacharski Institute of Theatre Art in Moscow. He works for State Youth Theatre in Vilnius and Kaunas Drama Theatre. With the State Youth Theatre he produced_ The Square_ by Yeliseyeva, Love and Death to Verona by Antanėlis and Geda, Pirosmani, _A Day Longer than a Hundred Years_ by Aitmatov, Uncle Vanya by Chekhov, and The Nose by Gogol. All of his productions are awarded and enjoy great national and international success. He himself is the recipient of numerous official awards in the field of the arts. Charged with directing the Lithuanian International Theater Festival LIFE, he produced Mozart and Salieri, Don Giovanni, The Feast During the Plague by Pushkin, Chekhov's The Three Sisters, and Love and Death to Verona. In 1994 he received a special award as best director of the year from the Lithuanian Theatre Association, the Baltic Assembly for Mozart and Salieri, Don Giovanni, The Plague and the Europe Prize for New Theatrical Realities from Taormina Arte. In 1997 he produced Shakespeare's multi-award-winning Hamlet. He is awarded the title of Grand Duke Gediminas and receives the National Prize of Lithuania. Since 1998 he has been artistic director of Meno Fortas studio theater, founded in the same year. He produces Shakespeare's Macbeth, Golden Mask award by Russian critics, debuts to Venice Shakespeare'sOthello, best production and best director award at the MESS Festival in Sarajevo, and receives the international K. S. Stanislavsky to Moscow. In 2002 he presented his first opera, Verdi's Macbeth at the Teatro Comunale in Florence. In 2003 he debuted with The Seasons of Kristijonas Donelaitis, which was awarded Best Director of the Year by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and Golden Mask of the Russian International Theater Festival as Best Foreign Theater Production, and produced Chekhov's acclaimed The Cherry Orchard. The poetic production based on the Old Testament Song of Songs is from 2004. This was followed by Desiatnikov's The Children of Rosenthal, for the Moscow Bolshoi, and _Boris Godunov for the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Goethe' s Faust, Wagner 's The Valkyries, Anna Karenina and Kitezh's The Legend of the Invisible City, Dostoevsky's The Idiot _which received the Golden Stage Cross, Gounod's Faust at La Scala in Milan, Caligula at the Theatre of Nations in Moscow, Verdi'sOtello at the Theatre of theOpera and Lithuanian National Ballet, Dante's Divine Comedy and Paradiso at the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Qudsja Zaher at the Wielki Theatre in Warsaw, The Book of Job at the Meno Fortas Theatre. In 2015 he directed _Boris Godunov _by Pushkin at the Lithuanian National Theatre.
Born in 1976 to Palanga, Lithuania, he studied architecture at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts. Since 1998 he has worked in theater as a set designer. His works, from 1999 to 2013, include: Shakespeare's Macbeth, Meno Fortas, Vilnius; Chekhov's The Seagull, Ecole des Maîtres, Fagagna, Udine; Barker's _Europeans , National Drama Theater, Vilnius; Chekhov's Ivanov _, Teatro Argentina, Rome; Verdi's _Macbeth _, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Teatro Massimo, Palermo; Donelaitis' The Seasons, Meno Fortas, Vilnius; Ganelin's The Devil's Bride,Vilnius; Verdi ' s Macbeth , Bolshoi Theater, Moscow; Gratulatio Vilnae, Vilnius; Song of Song s , based on the Old Testament, Meno Fortas, Vilnius; Desyatnikov's The Children of Rosenthal, Bolshoi tour, Moscow; Musorgsky's Boris Godunov, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Goethe's Faust, Meno Fortas, Vilnius; Wagner's Die Walküre, Lithuanian National Theater of 'Opera and Ballet; Tolstoi's Anna Karenina, Teatro Storchi, Modena; Rimsky Korsakov's The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitež, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Bolshoi Theater, Moscow; Musorgsky's Boris Godunov, La Fenice Theater, Venice; Dostoevsky's The Idiot, Meno Fortas, Vilnius; Sukhovo-Kobylin's The Death of Tarelkin, Mogilev, Belarus; Faust by Gounod, La Scala Theater, Milan, Italy; When We Dead Are Wasted by Ibsen, Panevezys, Lithuania; Caligula by Camus, Theatre of Nations, Moscow; Otello by Verdi, Lithuanian National Theater ofOpera and Ballet; Divine Comedy by Dante, Meno Fortas, Vilnius; Otello by Verdi, Petruzzelli Foundation, Bari, Italy ; Paradiso by Dante, Meno Fortas, Vilnius. In 2005 he was nominated for the Golden Mask Prize in Moscow and was awarded the Theatre Critics' Prize of Lithuania as the best set designer of the season. In 2009 he received the Ubu Prize for best set design in Italy for Anna Karenina. In 2010 he won First Prize in the International Architecture Competition for the new Russian Drama theater in Astana, Kazakhstan (together to K. & to. Reimeris, S. Norviliute, G. Klimavicius, to. Siaurusaitytė, M. Savickas).
Born to Irkutsk, Russia, she holds a degree in Scenography from the Irkutsk Art College. In the years 1972-1973 she was the Principal Scenographer of the State Youth Theatre in Irkutsk. She took production courses at GITIS in Moscow and worked with Eduard Kochergin to St. Petersburg. She has lived and worked in Lithuania since 1976. He has designed sets and costumes for Eimuntas Nekrošius's productions of Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and _The Cherry Orchard _by Chekhov, Shakespeare'sHamlet and Othello, costumes for _Life and Death to Verona by Antanelis and Geda, Macbeth by Shakespeare, Ivanov _by Chekhov, The Seasons by Donelaitis, Song of Songs from theOld Testament poem, Faust by Goethe, The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, Caligula by Camus, Divine Comedy by Dante, Verdi's Macbeth and Musorgsky's Boris Godunov at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theater, Rosenthal's Children at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the sets for Kurt Weil's The Seven Deadly Sins, the costumes for Wagner's Die Walkuere and Verdi'sOtello at the National Opera of Lithuania, Rimsky Korsakov's The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitež at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, Pawel Szymanski'sopera Qudsja Zaher at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw. In 2002 she received the Theatre Critics' Award of Lithuania as the best set designer of the season, while in 2004 she was nominated for the Golden Mask Award in Moscow. In 2016 she was awarded the Lithuanian Government Culture Award in recognition of her career.