On September 18, 19, 20 Kaunas Chamber Theatre starts a new season with a premiere The First Time. This performance has been staged after a play by a young Polish playwright Michal Walczak. Lithuanian theatre audience has already had chances to meet this, speedily becoming popular, author. His play A Travel into the Room was staged in Kaunas Drama Theatre (stage manager A. Jankevičius) and in Vilnius – in the theatre “Art Printing House” (stage manager A. Areima). The First Time is an ironic story of two young people, telling about their first sexual experience or, rather, their unsuccessful attempt to stage this event. A boy and a girl, inhabitants of a dreary district of blocks of flats, are trying to escape from this gray and all-destroying environment and to add some romance to their feelings. They wish to make their encounters perfect; however, they use the model from the shining magazine covers – flowers, rain, a dinner with the candles, romantic mood, refined dialogue, and pre-planned emotions and actions. Instead of relying on their unique feelings, desires, dreams and natural flow of events, they torture themselves with their own rules and squeeze themselves into the frames of a beautiful and perfect life, hoping that their first intimate encounter will be ideal. However, their marvelous plan is not destined to come true. The unromantic concrete reality of their district confuses them so that they are lost in the absurd labyrinth, and turn their naïve attempts into comic misunderstandings, as if “covering” their love with concrete for ever. Elements of Theatre of the Absurd, unexpected turns of situations and a surprising end make the play entertaining. With slight irony, the creators of the performance try to reveal, apparently simple, truth – it is impossible to invent life; one has simply to live it. The youngest actors of the theatre, Simona Bladženauskaitė and Gintautas Bejeris, are in the main roles and their elemental youth adds intriguing charm to the performance. Stage manager Stanislovas Rubinovas points out that working with young actors is equally interesting as with the experienced ones.
Tickets to the performances can neither be returned nor changed. Late entrance to the performance is not allowed.
