Karolis Kaupinis: Lithuanian Death Notices. The Story of One Performance

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

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

“The most fascinating endeavour in theatre, to me, is trying to touch eternity, because by its nature this art form is the most ephemeral. It is the fundamental human desire to transcend our temporary selves. And the transience of everything is now my central feeling. I sense it is not just mine. It seems to me that the fear of disappearance—collective disappearance, not just individual death—is what lingers in many of our subconscious minds as the Russian regime keeps repeating its threats that sooner or later we will suffer what Ukrainians are experiencing now. So where, if not in temporary theatre, is it worth speaking about this feeling of transience?” says director Karolis Kaupinis about the work’s relevance.

The production uses a great deal of archival footage of legends of Lithuanian theatre. According to the director, the central idea of “Lithuanian Death Notices. The Story of One Performance” is that, in these unstable times, enduring 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 banished from their minds, and that is precisely why they struggle so much to come to terms with their own transience. Yet today 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 feeling of hope and meaning in a time when politics cannot provide it,” says Karolis Kaupinis.

The production uses archival material 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”; a work by Antanas Jasenka from the production “Įstabioji ir graudžioji Romeo ir Džuljetos istorija”, directed by Oskaras Koršunovas; Claude VonStroke – “Who's Afraid of Detroit”; “The Sweet Enoughs” – “Dream Puppy”; Eleni Karaindrou – “Ulysses' Gaze”; Henry Mancini.