Karolis Kaupinis: Lithuanian Obituaries. The Story of One Performance

“Lithuanian Obituaries. The Story of One Performance” follows a group of theatre-makers trying to recreate a legendary production and, in doing so, restore a sense of wholeness to their own lives and to theatre in the present. But the work is difficult: the actors grapple with love and personal fulfilment, the ageing director chases his fading glory, and neither on stage nor backstage can they hold on to moments of success and happiness for more than a second. Attempts to recreate them or make them anew do not help. The hope that eternal happiness can be attained in a temporary world gradually traps the artists in a theatre turning into hell—a performance that is temporary forever.

In 2024, film director and screenwriter Karolis Kaupinis won a competition for a European playwrights’ residency programme organised by the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre with its partners: the Spanish National Theatre in Madrid, the Gorki Theatre in Berlin, the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels, and Zagreb Youth Theatre. His play received many favourable reviews at the “Versmė” playwriting festival, and he was invited to create a production for the LNDT Main Stage.

“For me, the most interesting aim in theatre is trying to touch eternity, because by its nature this art form is the most ephemeral. It is the fundamental human desire—to surpass our temporary selves. And the transience of everything is now my defining feeling. I sense it is not mine alone. It seems to me that the fear of disappearance—specifically collective disappearance, not only individual death—is what lingers in many of our subconscious minds as the Russian regime constantly repeats its threats that sooner or later we will face what Ukrainians are experiencing now. So where, if not in a temporary theatre, is it worth speaking about this feeling of transience?” says director Karolis Kaupinis about the work’s relevance.

The production uses many archival video recordings of legends of Lithuanian theatre. According to the director, the central idea of “Lithuanian Obituaries. The Story of One Performance” is that, in today’s unstable times, lasting hope can come only from believing that everything does not end here and now. The eternity of the next world makes up for the transience of this one.

“This is an idea that secular people have already driven from their minds, and that is precisely why they struggle so much to come to terms with their own transience. Yet in the present, we inevitably have to return to this idea if we are not to lose the meaning of living. With this production, we want audiences to experience a sense of togetherness by bringing them together, and to create a sense of hope and meaning in a time when politics offers none,” says Karolis Kaupinis.

The production includes archival footage from LRT, “Lietuvos rytas” and TV3 television, Lrytas.lt, Šiauliai Drama Theatre, and Karolis Kaupinis. Excerpts from the following musical works are heard: Giedrė — “Tą naktį grojo Tomas Boo”; Antanas Jasenka’s composition from the production “The Wonderful and Sorrowful Story of Romeo and Juliet,” directed by Oskaras Koršunovas; Claude VonStroke — “Who's Afraid of Detroit”; The Sweet Enoughs — “Dream Puppy”; Eleni Karaindrou — “Ulysses' Gaze”; Henry Mancini.