Based on a play by Eugène Ionesco
Premiere: September 18, 2026
Director: Žilvinas Vingelis
Assistant Director: Marius Pažereckas
Set and Costume Designer: Renata Valčik
Composer: Andrius Šiurys
Video projection artist: Tomas Stonys
Circus choreographer: Kęstas Matusevičius
Lighting designer: Paulius Jakubėnas
Artist’s assistant: Aistė Alksnytė
Translated from French by Laima Rapšytė
Cast:
Mr. Jonas Baranauskas
Housekeeper Kamilė Andriuškaitė
First Mover Karolis Norvilas
Second Mover Liudas Vyšniauskas
The play “The New Tenant” is based on a play by Eugène Ionesco, a Romanian-French playwright and one of the most prominent figures of the 20th-century French avant-garde, which has become a classic of the theater of the absurd. The play explores the human relationship with objects—how they shape our daily lives, influence our behavior, and yet remain enigmatic guardians of personal memory.
*The New Tenant*, along with *The Chairs* and *Amédée, or How to Get Rid of Him*, is classified among E. Ionesco’s so-called “plays of objects.” In these plays, the playwright tells the story not only through the characters’ spoken lines but also through the meticulously choreographed arrangement of objects on stage, which develops a parallel narrative thread. In these plays, objects become just as important a part of the dramatic language as the text itself.
E. Ionesco’s one-act play was written in 1953, first published in 1954, and premiered in 1955 in Helsinki. This work brings together the most important features of E. Ionesco’s dramaturgy: a crisis of language and communication, the breakdown of everyday logic, the grotesque, alienated and disturbed characters, repetitive actions, and the materialization of inner human states through stage imagery and objects.
The production is characterized by the interdisciplinary artistic expression typical of director Žilvinas Vingelis, in which the tradition of the theater of the absurd meets contemporary puppet and object theater, contemporary circus, intermedia, technological, and visual theater. The production is being created in collaboration with artists from the fields of contemporary circus, contemporary music, visual arts, and media art.
“Objects rule our lives; if we lack them, we feel anxiety. So, after reading the play, I was curious to try to figure out what lies hidden in the tenant’s boxes—in their abundance, I saw a riddle, a provocation.”
Director Žilvinas Vingelis
“Suitcases? They’re everything that weighs us down: our anxiety, our past, the burden of life, our guilt. Everything that prevents us from breaking free, moving freely, escaping.”
Eugène Ionesco, interview with Béatrix Andrade, “Quatre fois Ionesco” (“L’Express,” 1975)
Smoking occurs during the performance; strobe lights are used.
