Premiere: February 28, 2020
Director: Darius Rabašauskas
Set and Costume Designer: Laura Luišaitytė
Composer: Jonas Jurkūnas
Lighting Designer: Darius Malinauskas
Translated from Swedish by Rasa Baranauskienė
Assistant Director: Vaidas Jočys
Kristina Žaldokaitė sings on the show’s soundtrack
Cast:
Katarina – Toma Gailiūtė
Frank – Jonas Baranauskas
Jena – Justina Vanžodytė
Tomas – Vaidas Jočys
The play “Demons” by contemporary Swedish playwright Lars Norén is brutally honest and laced with a healthy dose of absurd humor. The action takes place in a beautifully furnished apartment. On stage are four people in their thirties—two married couples living in the same apartment building. Behind the façade of prosperous, well-to-do families lies a slow and inevitable catastrophe that unfolds day after day. It’s no wonder that L. Norén is often compared to Strindberg—his *Demons* deals with the same human paradox: the ability (and even the secret inner desire) to turn the life of another person—someone close and perhaps even still loved—into a living hell.
The play’s director, Darius Rabašauskas, says: “This is not a traditional play about sorting out relationships. Marriage here is merely a circumstance, a situation. It’s important, but not the only one possible. So the play will be more about instincts, about inner strength: the strength that governs, creates, and destroys. Specifically, about that force—about a demon. And if the demon needs a human—as a creative being—to act, then the force of the beginning or the end lies precisely within the human. We’re trying to talk about a hunger for sensation (perception), about senses that are growing increasingly dull and require ever more extreme experiences. About the search for ever-sharper sensations, an ever-sharper stimulus that would allow one to feel life, to feel that one is alive. The need for an ever-sharper stimulus and ever-hungrier individuals. It is precisely this hunger, this state of hunger, that determines the supremacy and dominance of instinct. Because the characters do not question anything. “I want,” “I desire,” “I crave”—these dominate. This state of starvation is the starting point; we live in it, and the play takes its cue from it. Extremity is achieved here through another person, through their torment. And of oneself at the same time. Pain is the surest sign of life. When it hurts, you feel.”
Smoking and strobe lights are used during the performance.
