Flying Travolta

The play “Flying Travolta” is for those who miss richly drawn acting roles and good stories. It is an absorbing tale infused with gentle irony and humour, about the efforts each of us does—or does not—make to live our own life rather than one dictated by circumstances. The play is presented by a young theatre-making team from neighbouring Latvia. Director Toms Treinis chose the play by contemporary Latvian playwright Artūrs Dicis for its staging in Šiauliai for a reason: as the director says, its subject is equally relevant and relatable to audiences in both Latvia and Lithuania.

The play tells of the residents of a remote village whose everyday lives are consumed by personal troubles. Rich dialogue, everyday speech and humour take us to a small, forgotten village, where the residents make no attempt to change anything or change themselves, and let one day after another pass much like the last. At the centre of the story is a young man named Travolta, whom many in the village consider simply “crazy” because of his withdrawn nature and strange habits. Among his other eccentricities, Travolta has an incomprehensible, dangerous and seemingly pointless “hobby”: suddenly jumping out in front of cars speeding through the village. One day, this absurdly foolish pastime attracts journalists’ attention, and events take a very unexpected turn…

Travolta, like all the other characters, seems to have resigned himself to his fate. In reality, however, he carries a great family secret, whose revelation makes it clear that beneath the play’s rough exterior lies a devastating tragedy of love, guilt and atonement. Travolta is something like Latvia’s Forrest Gump, trying to find a way forward even in the most unfavourable circumstances.

The performance is led by the actors’ psychologically precise work, touched with a hint of gentle irony. Each character feels trapped by circumstances that, in their view, prevent them from breaking free and fulfilling their dreams. As a result, each is unhappy in their own way. But do they truly want to change their lives, and are they making a sincere effort to do so?

Playwright A. Dicis says that with this play he wanted to remind audiences of a very simple but, sadly, often forgotten truth: life is not something abstract—“every single second it is happening within us, and we ourselves are the true creators of our lives. There is no such place as ‘nowhere’, where life simply flows past without touching people.”

Director Toms Treinis: “As I stage this play, I think about the reasons for human unfulfilment and resignation to fate. Through mundane, banal daily life and the prospect of the characters’ emptiness and self-destruction, I try to approach the fundamental clichés of thought that shape such a life. They cannot be dispelled by empty talk or ‘wise’ words overheard from others, by self-pity or accusations, but by concrete steps and actions that must be taken to bring about change. Facing one’s fate is not pleasant for many, but it is the essential condition for beginning to change.”

Premiere: 2023-03-26. Funded…