Orpheus

Director Žilvinas Vingelis is the winner of the third annual contest “DramaTest”, organized by the State Small Theatre of Vilnius, for this contest he presented an excerpt after Cocteau’s play “Orpheus”.

The performance was created according to the French playwright Jean Cocteau’s (1889 – 1963) play written almost one hundred years ago, in 1925, but the themes it discusses are relevant and important nowadays. This play (original title “Orphée”) is not only the first solid Cocteau creation for the theatre but also the first artist’s attempt to take upon Orpheus’ theme which remained essential throughout his long creative career. The plot of the play unites classical theatre, surrealism, dadaism, and visual arts traditions. Although the historical and artistic meanings of the play is unarguable we almost do not have its stagings in the history of Lithuanian theatre. As director Vingelis says, the main themes of the play are the confrontation between reality and dream, artistic ambitions, and personal happiness.

The action takes place in the home of a young couple (Orpheus and Eurydice) in Thrace that is taking on the traits of Paris in the 1930s. Orpheus, a surrealist stream-of-consciousness poet, strives to write a brilliant poem for an upcoming poetry competition of mass popularity. His creative method – the interrogation of a horse that settled in his home, being in temptation to transform all poetry. Forgotten and rejected, Eurydice finds comfort in the company of the glazier Heurtebise. Unfortunately, it soon becomes obvious that neither Heurtebise nor the horse are what they seem…

On the stage, the spectator is transferred into the esthetic as well as mystique space of Art Deco. It is filled with the sound sphere created from different objects that are on stage by composer Andrius Šiurys’. On stage, one can see the ensemble of actors of three generations, intermedial stage solutions, and also surgeons high-scalders, and the Guardian Angel working as a glazier. Director Žilvinas Vingelis’ “Orpheus” is a fairytale for groups of some kind, about a dream and reality, about relationships, family, and careerism which overruns it… “J. Cocteau behaves like a careful juggler inventing a world where there is no one truth and the dreams again become real,” says the director. As critic Aušra Kaminskaitė claims (12 May 2024, lrt.lt), “Orpheus” is an exceptionally stylish performance, where the manners of actors, costumes, set details, and even video projections tastefully fit together and complement each other.

Today, Jean Cocteau would probably be called an interdisciplinary artist. He had tried out many professions: writer, poet, playwright, painter, novelist, screenwriter, film director, graphic designer, pianist, fashion and interior designer, creator of sculptures and surreal objects, musician, and even boxing manager. As “National Observer” notices, “of the generation of artists whose boldness gave birth to all 20^th century art, Cocteau was the closest to a Renaissance man”. Indeed, Cocteau was one most prominent figures in Paris in the first part of the 20^th century, a citizen of the world in change.

It is said that it is only after Cocteau’s provocations that we can accept the next generation of artists, such as Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas and others, who are no longer strong professionals in one field, but rather free personalities, artists. Cocteau’s shadow can be spotted in almost every field of art – he was always provoking society, one step ahead.

As the critic Aistė Šivytė writes in her review (10 May 2024, Menų faktūra), “Orpheus” offers a fun evening at the theatre: both for the easily snobbish lovers of the avant-garde, and for those who are looking for a quality entertainment in the theatre or for a pleasant escape from the problems of daily life.

About director

Žilvinas Vingelis – Lithuanian theatre director, founder and art director of the audiovisual experimental theatre “Kosmos Theatre”, creative programs’ coordinator in Vilnius Theatre “Lėlė”. Since 2019, Vingelis is the artistic director of the annual international visual theatre workshop “Kosmos Lab”, and from 2021 he is the coordinator of annual contemporary puppet and objects’ theatre laboratory “SurReality Check”. In addition to visual and modern musical theatre, Vingelis experiments in the fields of virtual reality, web art, mobile applications, installations, musical experiments and contemporary opera, he collaborates with Lithuanian video artists, visual artists and composers and interdisciplinary art projects. In 2021, Vingelis and his creative team were awarded the National Theatre Award in the category of the Pandemic Resistant Theatre.

It is worth noting that Cocteau’s play “Orpheus” was staged in Paris in 1926 by the Armenian-born French theatre director Georges Pitoëff and his wife Ludmilla Pitoëff. The set of the premiere was designed by Victor Hugo’s grand grandchild Jean Hugo and the costumes were designed by the French designer, the world’s fashion icon Coco Chanel,  founder of the “Chanel”.