KLAIPĖDA CASTLE THEATER
“YOU ARE BLOCKING MY VIEW OF THE OCEAN”
A comedy-farce about the longing for deep, eternal love and the distrust of that love when it finally arrives
Translated and directed by Alvydas Vizgirda
Costume designer Aina Zinčiukaitė
Composer Edvinas Vasiljevas
Stage manager Vytas Aleknavičius
Starring Vilija Gruodytė, Viktorija Miliauskaitė, Auksė Naujokienė, Jonas Baranauskas, Vaidas Jočys, Ramūnas Šeputis
Although Keren Klimovsky wrote the play “You Are Blocking My Ocean” back in 2011, this will be its first staging on a theater stage.
“It’s no surprise that, at 23, I wanted to write-and did write-a play about love, even if it took such a sharp, grotesque form. Reading it now, 15 years later, I realized that the play isn’t about love at all, but rather-on the contrary-about the impossibility of love. It’s about the fear of love, about trivialities, the rational rejection of love, about selfish love that cannot withstand the test of time, and death due to a lack of love.
All the characters in the play long for love, but are unable to love. Probably because they are obsessed with fantasies of love that take no account of another living person with their own problems, fears, and flaws.
Now I see that this is a text about our generation, which has been granted complete freedom. But that hasn’t made us any happier, and we still don’t understand how to make use of this freedom. It’s as if we’re rubbing our pain against one another and hurting each other even more (regardless of whether we’ve started families or are living solitary lives).
The play also touches on the older generation. I’ve always been concerned with the theme of love among older people, their relationships. Perhaps because, as the end approaches, everything becomes even more acute when death draws near and begins to claim its rights over you. Or perhaps it’s because this experience is far removed from me: it’s as if I’m trying to project it onto myself, and something is born out of that distance.
However, the older generation in this play is viewed through the eyes of our generation. After all, we really wanted to prove that we’re better than our parents, that we’ll succeed where they failed. But did we succeed? Unlike them-yes, but perhaps this isn’t “better,” but simply “a different kind of ‘bad’”? It turns out that we, as people, haven’t yet figured out how to live with it-with this love. It turned out to be a sad play. But, I hope, not a hopeless one. That’s why it was important for me to emphasize the comedy of the situations-so that we can laugh. Because as long as we can laugh at ourselves, we still have hope…”. (K. Klimovsky)
The play’s author, Keren Klimovsky, was born in Moscow and currently lives in Sweden.
At the Klaipėda Castle Theater, director Alvydas Vizgirda has staged K. Klimovsky’s plays *A Lullaby for a Grown Man* (2017) and *The Widow, the Dwarf, the Seal, and Others* (2019).
Premiere: November 20, 2024.
Running time: ~1 hour 30 minutes (no intermission)
Children are not admitted free of charge
For more information, call +370 46 410565;
[email protected]
