Mistras

My wife suggested we go see Mistras, which opened the Fall season at Vilniaus Mažasis Teatras.  It was quite an event with even her excellency, Dalia Grybauskaitė, on hand for the play and the ceremonies which followed.

Marius Ivaškevičius takes a very interesting look at the Polish-Lithuanian exiled community in Mistras.  The play, directed by Rimas Tuminas, literally swirls around Adam Mickiewicz, the great "Slavic bard" who became the center of this displaced community fighting to regain some sense of their lost kingdom.  In comes Andrzej Towiański (Mistras), a holy fool not much unlike Rasputin, who would eventually take hold of Mickiewicz's imagination.  Ramūnas Cicėnas steals the show in his over the top portrayal of the self-proclaimed messiah. 

Ivaškevičius seemed to enjoy the confusion he created in Mickiewicz's troubled mind, unable to decide if he was Polish or Lithuanian, but since this is a Lithuanian play, the Lithuanian side is predominant, replete with a very amusing restaurant scene where Mickiewicz debates Pierre Leroux on religion vs. socialism, only for Leroux to be unceremonious trampled by one of the Lithuanian dancers, after he defames Adamas.

As Adamas takes on an ever more messianic tone, having fallen completely under the influence of  Mistras, he stuns his intellectual circle.  Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, Margaret Fuller and Frédéric Chopin are all represented, with a badly beaten Pjeras hiding behind Sand's coattails.

George Sand is most gloriously presented of the company with a shock of red hair piled atop her head, black tights and a men's double-breasted jacket which hugs her body tightly.  She has brought Margaret Fuller with her, America's first female foreign correspondent and once part of Emerson's Transcendentalist circle.  She is amusingly clothed as well, with tiny little top hat attached to her voluminous white wig.  Once again, thanks go to Juozas Statkevičius for the terrific costumes.

As usual, I had a hard time following the play, with my wife filling me on details at intermission and afterward. Ivaškevičius culled his characters from the lively Parisien intellectual community, more or less maintaining the spirit of the time.  It was hard to believe Mickiewicz was so easily taken in by Towiański, but from what I have read since that actually was the case.  While entertaining, the play seemed to lack an organic flow.  All though, the ending where Mistras tries to force Adamas into writing an agonizing letter to the Russia Tsar that would allow them to return home proved quite powerful.  Adamas simply can't bring himself to accept the Russian occupation of his homeland and goes to organize Polish forces to fight in the Crimean War.
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Photos from VMT and alfa.lt