Jo Strømgren: Roulette

The 87th season is the final season for the play “Roulette.” We invite you to take the opportunity to see its final performances. “Roulette” is created by Jo Strømgren, a director and choreographer already well known in Lithuania. His 2018 production “Doors,” created for LNDT, won no fewer than four Golden Stage Cross awards and remains popular with audiences. With that production, the director showed that distance is needed for reflection: there he examined the traits and flaws of the Lithuanian national character; this time, Jo Strømgren explores the dreams and desires we suppress in ourselves in order to feel safe and be like everyone else. The scenes, spinning like a roulette wheel, are presented by the director and actors as a comedy of situations, in which each character tries to escape repression, hoping to experience at least a fleeting sense of happiness. The comedy asks what might drive us to use intoxicants, commit violence, experience gender confusion, and seek religious answers. “Roulette” is also about freedom of choice and responsibility, about the role of reality and the illusory world, and ultimately raises very universal questions about the times we live in. “Roulette” begins in a small, insignificant office, where one tiny mistake sets the characters spinning into a carousel of the most unexpected events. No one knows what the next turn will bring. “In life, we take calculated risks. The cautious may experience boredom or a certain monotony, while the bold disregard all boundaries. Fortunately, each of us can choose. But what happens when someone else takes a risk on your behalf? In this stage production, together with the creative team, we will seek to create a broad field of associations and interpretations, allowing the story to be viewed from a variety of perspectives—from issues in our Nordic everyday life and the current geopolitical situation to the life of an ordinary individual, regardless of time or place,” says Jo Strømgren. The production is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.