The Dresser

Could anything be more colourful, passionate and dramatic, more exhausting yet more uplifting than an actor’s life? Is there another profession in the world that so completely permeates and governs a person’s life? An actor is a god of the stage, a conqueror of the audience’s hearts, but also a jester, a clown, as if begging the audience for love and attention… “The Dresser” invites you to travel back to England in the 1940s and glimpse one evening in the tragicomic life of an actor, Sir, and his dresser, Norman, as they prepare for a performance. The Second World War marks the end of the era of companies performing Shakespeare’s works: young men leave their troupes to go to war, and the shortage of actors becomes a challenge for the leading actor and theatre manager. Sir is one of them. While bombs fly over the theatre and the ailing actor can barely make sense of his surroundings, Norman, Sir’s longtime assistant, is determined to keep the theatre going—but is he destined to succeed? “The Dresser” invites you to peek into the romantic backstage world of the theatre and listen to the witty, humorous conversations and exchanges of characters whose love for theatre runs deep. Wildly funny and profoundly moving, the work is still considered one of the greatest portraits of life in the theatre. The play “The Dresser” by British playwright, screenwriter and actor Sir Ronald Harwood, who had Lithuanian roots, has held sway on stages around the world for forty years. Both the play and its productions have won numerous awards, including the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award. The film “The Dresser”, directed by Peter Yates in 1983, received especially wide acclaim and numerous awards, while in the 2015 film by Richard Eyre, the roles of Sir and Norman were played by Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen. Lithuanian theatre audiences were first introduced to the play by director Algirdas Latėnas. In 1996, he staged “The Dresser” at the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre with stars including Regimantas Adomaitis, Eglė Gabrėnaitė, Arūnas Sakalauskas and others. Returning for a second time to the play that reveals the backstage life of actors, director A. Latėnas says it is important to him to connect with the people who come to the theatre. That should not be difficult, as the play offers excellent material for actors—and the cast includes nearly the entire constellation of stars of the Juozas Miltinis Drama Theatre. The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.