Teklė Kavtaradze. The Silence of the Sirens

◊ 2022 Main Prize at the international European festival for young directors, Fast Forward, in Dresden

Sirens sing beautifully, Homer writes. They lurk on an island, luring men sailing past and bringing about their deaths. Except for Orpheus, who sings louder, and Odysseus, whose companions put wax in their ears and tie him to the mast so he can listen to the sirens and survive.

Violence prevails in European mythology: among people, gods, mythical beings and genders. Inequality and imbalances of power give rise to strategies of fear and defence, rather than relationships. What makes us hold on to these structures?

Working with her colleagues, director Laura Kutkaitė places a contemporary story right in the middle of the minefield of myth: four years after the #MeToo movement peaked in Lithuania, she brings the abuse of power in the art world to the stage. Posing on a rock and waiting for the “great Odysseus,” four actresses open their island theatre and tell true stories from their own creative processes and those of other Lithuanian women artists. They leave out none of the dark details—not even the competition among themselves—and perform theatre together: with costumes and makeup, sound and light, bitter humour, passion, vulnerability and for many reasons. In this way, they strike tragically and comically at structures precisely where they might be changed.

“I miss women’s roles, I miss the elemental power of women in theatre, and most of all I miss their voices. That is why the performance is first and foremost about the woman’s voice, its creative and, at the same time, destructive power,” says Laura Kutkaitė, director of The Silence of the Sirens.

The performance is part of the Young Creators Programme implemented by LNDT. The Silence of the Sirens opened the new Small Hall, built during the reconstruction and intended to present the work of participants in the Young Creators Programme.

The performance is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.