JONA

“Jona” consists of five separate stories linked by one common detail: in each, the characters find themselves trapped in unexpected situations with people they neither feel comfortable with nor enjoy being around. A prostitute is stuck in a room with her client and… her fiancé; a director is locked in a theatre with a theatre critic he dislikes and a stagehand who cannot stand him… The characters in “Jona” are trapped not only physically but also mentally, caught in their own inner prisons. For some, these prisons are childhood psychological traumas; for others, old misconceptions, addictions, feverish desires or an overwhelming sense of guilt. Thus, caught in comical circumstances, all the characters in the play grapple with problems in their lives that are not very funny. Much like the prophet Jonah, whose story is told in the Bible. Fleeing from God and his destiny, Jonah was swallowed by a whale, inside which he spent three endless days. Having resolved the questions that bound him, the prophet was miraculously freed from the death awaiting him in the whale’s belly. Will the characters in the play manage to free themselves, too? The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. In 2023, at the 12th international theatre festival “Com•media” in Alytus, Evaldas Ivanauskas won the National Theatre Poster Competition with his poster for the play “Jona.” Reviews of the play: “Residents Trapped in a Spinning World” (7md.lt); Aušra Kaminskaitė, “On Wisdom and Its Prophets: Špilevojus’s Play ‘Jona’ at Miltinis Drama Theatre” — LRT.