Birutė Kapustinskaitė. Siberian Haiku

◊ Winner of the 2023 Dalė Tamulevičiūtė Competition for Lithuanian Authors’ Stage Works

Based on the book *Siberian Haiku* by J. Vilė and L. Itagaki

Recognised as the best children’s book of 2018, Jurga Vilė and Lina Itagaki’s graphic novel *Siberian Haiku* finds a sensitive, unvarnished way to tell children about the cruelty and everyday realities of deportation. As in the book, the production centres on children’s experiences and a child’s perspective on deportation.

The book’s character, Algiukas, dreams of flying around the world with his friend, the goose Martynas. Soon, this does happen—but in a completely different way than he imagined. On an early morning in June 1941, a group of soldiers drag the boy, his sister Dalia, his father Romas and his mother Uršulė out of bed and tell them to get ready for a journey. In this way, groups of Lithuanians are sent to Siberia against their will.

The child is faced with many questions: Why are they being deported? What have they done wrong? Where is Siberia? In that distant, foreign land, the family must survive on frozen potatoes, salt their soup with tears, and warm their hearts with songs. There, the deportees’ choir “Obuoliai” is born; there, singing makes wings grow, and the hope of returning home never leaves them.

“The book *Siberian Haiku* by Jurga Vilė, which inspired the production, finds a unique way to tell children about the extremely difficult experiences of deportation through their own perspective on these cruelties. With the production, we aim to preserve the book’s playfulness, which lends these stories lightness and makes them more accessible to a young audience. By exploring the subject of deportation, the production seeks not only to shed light on events or recount them, but also to help children understand what seems incomprehensible,” says director Augustas Gornatkevičius, who has already staged several productions for children.

A. Gornatkevičius’s theatrical style is based on continually combining humour with serious issues, changing visual forms, active physical movement, and the use of symbols familiar to audiences, while enriching classical dramaturgy with contemporary concerns. The young-generation theatre director Augustas Gornatkevičius has successfully shown that he can create for children as well as adults: for his 2021 production *Emilių Emilis*, he received a Golden Stage Cross nomination and a Fortūna Award.

According to the director, his new work *Siberian Haiku* contributes to preserving national memory and shaping the moral values of the younger generation by fostering civic awareness and the ability to understand, empathise and find inspiration for life. Death, loss and injustice may seem the hardest themes to explain to children, but the production team does not shy away from them; instead, it seeks to give them meaning through the stories of the main character and his friends.