Based on Gustave Flaubert’s novel: Madame Bovary

Adapted from English by Agnė PULOKAITĖ

“She wanted a son; (...) she would have named him George, and the thought of giving birth to a boy was like long-awaited revenge for all the helplessness of her earlier life. A man, at least, is free (...) She gave birth one Sunday at around six in the morning, as the sun was rising. ‘It’s a girl!’ Charles said.”

One reason Gustave Flaubert’s novel *Madame Bovary* remains so relevant is that the protagonist Emma’s desires are not entirely her own. They arise from the patriarchal imagination, which gives words to how she understands love, happiness, beauty and self-fulfilment. What seems deeply personal is, in fact, shaped by social expectations long before she names it as her supposedly personal choice. Today, this process can be described as a social algorithm: a network of cultural narratives, images and norms that quietly influences all our aspirations and fantasies. Today’s social media feeds and recommendation systems work like the romantic novels Emma reads. They constantly present models of passion, success and happiness, teaching us not only what to desire, but how to desire it. Emma’s tragedy lies not in excessive desires, but in pursuing ideals imposed on her. In this sense, she is no exception, but a surprisingly contemporary figure, caught between the promise of individual freedom and the invisible forces that shape her desires.

Oliver Frljić, one of Europe’s most prominent directors, often called a provocateur of the theatre, previously created *The Metamorphosis*, based on the work of Franz Kafka, at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre. He now presents a new adaptation and a new work based on Gustave Flaubert’s novel *Madame Bovary*. According to the director, Emma’s downfall in this work is neither a moral failure nor the fate of a victim. It stems from a contradiction at the heart of existence: the protagonist is encouraged to desire freedom, romance and self-fulfilment, yet the very society that creates these desires offers few ways to realise them. Emma’s struggle takes place between what she was taught to desire and what the world allows her to become.

“Rather than judging Emma, this production examines the mechanisms that create her. It approaches *Madame Bovary* not only as the story of one woman’s unfulfilment, but also as an investigation into the social forces that shape our desires. Emma’s fate reveals how identity, fantasies and ambitions are formed through the stories we inherit before we recognise them as our own. Another reason this work feels so contemporary is that we never know quite whose voice we are hearing. Sometimes a sentence seems to belong to the narrator, then suddenly sounds like Emma’s thought, a social cliché or even our own judgement as readers. Flaubert constantly erases these boundaries, making it difficult to distinguish observation from desire, irony from sincerity, or criticism from identification. Rather than telling us what to think about Emma, the novel draws us into the language that shapes her,” says ada.