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 Kai has been staged in various theatres many times 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 prompted a return to the work. According to the production’s director, Nijolė Indriūnaitė, Andersen’s tale raises questions relevant to every generation of young audiences: What forms the basis of relationships? How should we understand the encounter between Life and Death? Where can we find the hope needed to create a new quality of communication? These questions emerge in the story of the tale’s main characters, sister Gerda and brother Kai, 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 Snow Queen’s land—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 a reference encoded to a concrete action through which spiritual peace can be restored: ‘just—walking’ [a play on the Lithuanian word for faith]—the action that propels Gerda forward and keeps her from losing hope,” reflects N. Indriūnaitė, noting that the production gives ample creative space to shadow theatre and visual-theatre forms, enabling the development of an associative, open-ended field of meaning. The actors perform using shadow-theatre techniques; screens of various sizes are used, and projections, puppets of different forms and made with different techniques (paper cut-outs and carved, textured shadows), masks and paper-sculpture objects are displayed. The stage design draws on principles characteristic of cinematic aesthetics: montage of different shots and images, and the expressive dynamics of moving objects. “We want young audience members to immerse themselves in a distinctive visual world, filled with images of dreams and visions that unfold like a memory,” says the production’s visual artist, Aušra Bagočiūnaitė Paukštienė.