The Snow Queen

Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Snow Queen” is one of the best-known works by the Danish storyteller and has become a classic of children’s literature worldwide. The tale of Gerda’s journey to find her brother Kay has been staged in numerous theatres and adapted for the screen. Although H. C. Andersen’s “The Snow Queen” was staged at Vilniaus teatras „Lėlė“ in 1993 (directed and designed by Vitalijus Mazūras), the original ideas of the creators of this production have inspired a return to the work. According to director Nijolė Indriūnaitė, Andersen’s tale contains questions relevant to every generation of young audiences: What forms the foundation of relationships? How should we understand the encounter between Life and Death? Where does the hope needed to create a new quality of communication lie? These questions emerge in the story of the tale’s main characters, sister Gerda and brother Kay, when the children lose the ability to listen sincerely to one another and become inattentive to the doubts and pain of those close to them. Gerda’s journey to Lapland, the land of the Snow Queen, to find her brother and bring him home is, in Nijolė Indriūnaitė’s words, “a journey of nurturing faith and love in a child’s inner world.” “In the word ‘faith’ we see an encoded reference to a particular action through which spiritual peace can be restored: ‘faith—going’—the action that drives Gerda forward and does not let her lose hope,” reflects N. Indriūnaitė, noting that the production gives considerable creative space to shadow theatre and visual theatre forms, allowing for an associative, open-ended field of meaning. The actors perform using shadow-theatre techniques; screens of various sizes are used, projections are shown, and puppets of different forms and made with different techniques (paper cut-outs and carved textured shadows), masks, and paper-art objects are featured. The stage setting is shaped using principles characteristic of cinematic aesthetics, including montage of images and shots at different depths, and the expressive dynamics of moving objects. “We want our young audience to immerse themselves in a distinctive visual world, full of images of dreams and visions, unfolding like a memory,” says the production’s artist, Aušra Bagočiūnaitė Paukštienė.