Adomas Juška: The performance will be about a man of particular sensitivity – Johannes Elias Alder, about his relationship with love, music and death. About a person who lives, feels and eventually dies without any compromise. About a person who is able to receive music immediately, as well as the world around him, which he perceives and hears as music. This may not be possible in reality, but that is what I want to talk about – something that is impossible. About impossible sensitivity, impossible love. It is not by accident that Elias plays the organ, not some other instrument – the purpose of the organ has always been religious, spiritual. Human life and destiny also sometimes obey musical laws rather than any other. Each person “plays” a certain musical piece with their life, thoughts, actions. The question is how much beauty, ideas, feeling and dynamics will be in that piece. Speaking about theatrical expression, when rehearsing with the actors, we try to make music, not dramaturgy the basis of the performance, so that the very nature of the performance – even the presence and performance of the actors on the stage – would be truly musical.
Robert Schneider is an Austrian writer who published novels, texts for theatre and poetry. His works have been translated in many languages and gained him international awards. He withdrawn from writing at 2007. Novel Brother of Sleep (1992) – a story about musician Johannes Elias Alder – gained international success and became a part of school canons. Director Robert Vismaier made a film version of Brother of Sleep at 1995. Herbert Willi directed an opera based on a book, at Pfalztheater a ballet was staged as well as other stage adaptations of the book.
Adomas Juška graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (course director Eimuntas Nekrošius). In his third year of study, Juška made his debut with the play Schweik (2018, State Youth Theatre), and a year later presented his second work, Fictions (2019, State Youth Theater). The author denies the influence of art philosophers and theorists on his work, yet performances created by Juška are marked by a deep philosophical touch on foreign literature classics, characterised by a mature language of directing and filled with reflection, symbols and the grotesque.