The Dresser

Can anything be more colourful, passionate and dramatic, more exhausting yet at the same time more uplifting than an actor’s life? Is there any other profession in the world that so 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 1940s England and glimpse an evening in the tragically comic life of an actor, Sir, and his dresser, Norman, as they prepare for a performance. The Second World War marked the end of the era of companies performing Shakespeare’s works: young men leaving for the battlefield deserted their troupes, and the shortage of actors became a challenge for the leading actor and theatre manager. Sir is one of them. As 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 behind the romantic scenes of theatre and listen to the characters’ conversations and sparring, full of wit, humour and a deep love of theatre. This wildly funny and profoundly moving 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 has Lithuanian roots, has reigned on theatre 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 particularly wide acclaim and numerous awards; in Richard Eyre’s 2015 film, 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 lives 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 almost the entire constellation of stars of Juozas Miltinis Drama Theatre. The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania.