Based on David Foster Wallace’s Essay: Consider the Lobster

Based on David Foster Wallace’s essay of the same name and other works. Translated from English by Ignas Beitsas.

For the production at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre’s Small Hall, Yana Ross chose “Consider the Lobster,” an essay by American writer David Foster Wallace (1962–2008), who fundamentally questioned human nature. In his writing, D. F. Wallace explores some of the most sensitive and uncomfortable issues in contemporary society: empathy, child-rearing, intimacy, miscommunication and the end of anthropocentrism.

“We hope to encourage audiences to rethink their ethical and moral codes and values, while also drawing attention to socially accepted grey areas that we intend to question. Susan Sontag’s important book Regarding the Pain of Others was also very helpful in creating the production,” says Yana Ross.

“I confess that I’ve never understood why, for such a large number of people, a fun vacation is associated with flip-flops and sunglasses, wearing which they have to push through insane traffic to noisy, scorching, overcrowded tourist destinations in order to sample ‘local delicacies’—even though the tourists’ very presence essentially undermines the whole concept. To me, being a mass tourist means becoming the quintessential contemporary American: an uncultivated foreigner, greedily desiring what he cannot have and disappointed by what he cannot admit to himself,” writes D. F. Wallace.

Thanks to: Prof. Dr. Mintautas Gutauskas, Rimgaile Renevyte, and everyone who donated toys.

CONSIDER THE LOBSTER © 2006 by David Foster Wallace
Excerpts from BRIEF INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN © 1999 by David Foster Wallace