INTO THE NIGHT

September 29 (Tuesday)
18:00 I 1 val.
LMTA I dir. Aleksandr Špilevoj I N-13
Kaunas City Chamber Theatre, Great Hall

Ticket price: 3, 5, or 10 euros (your choice)

“Into the Night” is a play about a society that is growing increasingly hostile—toward its loved ones, neighbors, and those who think and see the world differently. It is a play about a time when propaganda becomes an everyday reality and cruelty becomes the norm. Today, as war rages once again in Europe, as democracies flirt ever more aggressively with radicalism, and as social media spreads hatred faster than compassion, Ingmar Villqist’s play sounds not like a dystopia, but like a documentary from tomorrow.

The characters in the play are a young woman named Karla and a young man with a developmental disability named Helver, whom she has taken into her home. They are dependent on one another, live in a small apartment, and try to stay strong as xenophobia, militarism, and anti-Semitism take hold in the country. However, Karla is unable to protect Helveris from the prevailing ideology, and as a result, he has already been swept up by the rhythms of the street fighters, the aesthetics of uniforms, the sense of the crowd’s power, and the illusion of belonging to the “strong.”

He returns home intoxicated by collective rage—like a child who, for the first time, feels that he finally belongs to someone. But it soon becomes clear that totalitarianism doesn’t begin with tanks and dictators, but with loneliness, fear, and a person’s unjustified need to be accepted. Karla tries with all her might to save Helver from a world going mad, from the crowd, and from himself. But the harder she tries to protect him, the clearer it becomes that aggression and violence have already seeped into their own home, their bodies, their language, and their relationship. Love turns into control, care into fear, and tenderness begins to resemble a final act of resistance against the approaching catastrophe.

Director: Aleksandr Špilevoj
Scenographers:: Haroldas Kuliešius, Justas Sabastijanskas
Kostiumų dailininkė: Ieva Vaičiulytė
Composer: Kotryna Jančauskaitė
Performers: Simonas Goptaitis, Gabrielė Baubaitė