Vilhelmas Milis is cultural project manager of the Klaipėda Drama Theater, Lithuania, guest of the Showcase programme. We asked him to comment on the performances he saw at the festival programme.

I’ve already watched several performances at the festival. The first one that I saw was “The Boot”. It didn’t have any subtitles, so it was kind of difficult to understand what was going on. But what I liked about it was the acting, the actors did quite great; individually, they were kind of strong.

The next performance that I watched was “The Taming of the Shrew”. It reminded me of a circus. It was funny but it was also tacky, I guess. It was a bit too much. I also saw “Fat pig” and I didn’t enjoy it either, mostly because of the acting and the directing, I guess. It seemed like the performance didn’t bring anything new to the table. It would have been better for me to read the play. The tricks they used, the acting tricks were too simple.

I saw also “You Shouldn’t Have Said So!” and I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the actors a lot. I liked their chemistry. They played together well. The topics they chose, some of them I would cut myself out of the play but most of them were kind of good and they were thought provoking and they were analyzed quite well, and they were brought forth with some kind of levity, which usually theatre does not allow for. Usually, the theatre likes to push things too far and makes them dramatic or something. This felt like a conversation between two normal people, which was awesome to see. I liked the scenography and the lighting as well. It was simple but it got across the point and it wasn’t too much.

Anita Angelova prepared the material.