Kristina Steiblytė: The Guardian

What happens to a person when the familiar world loses its rules? Can a forest become a refuge for someone who has experienced abuse? Or is the forest itself a wounded being, seeking someone who will hear its silence? “The Guardian” invites audiences on a journey through a forest where reality, myths and people’s inner experiences intertwine. Here, the forest is not merely a place of peace or refuge. It is a space marked by human activity—with clear-cut areas, scarred trees and traces of disappearing life. At the same time, it is a mysterious territory where familiar boundaries dissolve and the possibility opens up of experiencing the world differently.

At the heart of the performance is a girl’s journey from a world permeated by control, power and manipulation into the forest. There, two wounded beings meet: a human and nature. Their experiences begin to mirror one another, and their shared vulnerability becomes an opportunity to form a new bond, grounded not in force but in sensitivity, attentiveness and empathy.

The journey also brings forth the figure of the guardian: one who watches, bears witness, protects and remains vigilant between different worlds. But who is really protecting whom? Is the human protecting the forest, or the forest the human? Can the forest save us, or, if we are to understand it, must we first dare to lose our way in it?

Playwright Kristina Steiblytė developed this play after winning the European Residency Programme competition organised by LNDT and its international partners, while undertaking residencies in Madrid, Zagreb, Brussels and Marseille.