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Roberto Zucco (1998), Shopping and Fucking (1999), Ugnies veidas {Fireface, 2000). They say that every talented director is marked not just by a feel for the stage but also a sense of timing, and here Oskaras Korsunovas is a sharp as a bird dog. He is enviably quick to respond to new times, and has a remarkable feel for novel forms. But that’s not all there is to it. In his theatre, the new times can also be shown through an in-depth analysis of youthful rebellion and its causes. In Fireface Kurt pours gasoline over himself and sets himself on fire. Self-immolation - the privilege of a national hero - becomes a young man's escape from liberty; freedom does not make for personal happiness. Endowing a confused teenager with the rhetoric of self-immolation should not be read as a desacralisation of heroic deeds in the wake of the change of the political system. It is merely a way of staying that domestic rebellion or the inability to live of Roberto Zucco are as much of an issue as surviving in a system that demanded ultimate sacrifices. Is this not why, in his production of Michail Bulkhakov’s cult novel The Master and Margarita, the director made the Master cannot be a charismatic figure because if he were, the miracle that is love could never occur? Korsunovas says that the problems experienced by the protagonists of new drama - relations with their mothers, relations with their family, just being here and now - are no less relevant than the problems existing under the old system which people seem to love talking about. "We had it so hard," one constantly hears people sigh. "But we don't have it easy either," Korsunovas replies. The space of productions like Roberto Zucco, Shopping and Fucking, Fireface is split by a discourse on the alleged lightness of being. And the young public is more than appreciative. Korsunovas treats them with the reverance normally reserved for mythological martyrs. It didn't take long for Oskaras Korsunovas' theatre to find an audience among a young, interdisciplinary public not over-attached to purity of genre and placing little stock in the petrified pathos of words. Korsunovas first productions were right on target he joked about the apocalypse, finding in Oberiu irony and absurdity a phenomenal artistic storehouse of fun that could transcend artificial and contrived symbolic meaning. He felt equally at home in other areas of art as he did in theatre, boldly expanding the concept of dramatic performance by confronting the public with means of expression taken from music, the cinema, video and the visual arts. In the middle of this artistic pluralism he judiciously installed an expressive actor whom he made the focus of the action on stage. The commotion sparked by Korsunovas first productions grew into a following: fans of his work have even formed Internet newsgroup devoted to him. Significantly, though, this director who often works abroad (Germany, Poland, Norway) and participates in international projects (Hotel Europa, THEOREM), has not become aloof and does not cater only to prestigious festivals, Korsunovas is just as lively and committed in his tours of provincial Lithuanian towns with no theatre of their own, when he performs in community culture centers: places where Eimuntas Nekrosius, for one, had never strayed. All of this places Korsunovas' theatre somewhere between Avignon and the town of N. in the Lithuanian hinterland. 1998 saw the registration of Oskaras Korsunovas Theatre (Oskaro Koršunovo Teatras), or OKT. OKT is an organic construct. The concept of the theatre developed on its own - even before being legitimized it had existed as an autonomous space. After the official establishment of OKT it became apparent that such a theatre had been around for some time, the country just

did not (and still does not) have a cultural policy conducive to the establishment of independent theatre companies. OKT is a theatrical fact that had developed naturally and spontaneously. The theatre has all it needs to succeed: an attentive public, a programme repertory, an original and radical style, and international renown. Behind it all is a group of staunch believers: manager Martynas Budraitis, and set designer Jurate Paulekaite. Grouped around them is a company of actors who trust the director, are used to commited and intense work, and set high standards themselves. Actors in Korsunovas' theatre are first and foremost artists, collaborators of the director, and champions of the ideas behind the production. Only then are they performers of uncanny technical prowess. Every OKT player is fired with a belief in the legitimacy of one's own creative space. As a student Oskaras Korsunovas would bring a Bible to this philosophy lectures and ostensibly keep it on his desk. A youthful, provocative gesture, designed to show his contempt for everything academic philosophy as a vehicle for Marxist propaganda stood for at the time. Later on, a certain category of viewers would identify Korsunovas' theatre with all the maladies of our times. They would not forgive him for placing the word 'Fucking' on a theatre poster and elevating it to the status of art Nor would they abide by his interpretation of Bulkhakov's The Master and Margarita seeing it as a comic book travesty of high literature, while his Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) would be dismissed as a puerile attempt to modernize the Bard. Those who revile Korsunovas’ theatre see in it only the product of cultural sabotage, but such a position is too committed. Provocation is never practiced for it own sake, nor is it ever the defining feature of Korsunovas' theatre, it is not superficial and certainly not immature. It reaches far deeper as is the case with the theatrical form of The Master and Margarita. It owes its defiance to the director's decision to stage Bulkhakov's novel in a style of theatre the author detested and lampooned: that of Meyerholds Theatrical Octobres" with glimpses of biomechanics, constructivism, futurism and pure eccentricity. The young director chose literally to interpret Bulkhakov's work ironic comment that Meyerhold should die and be reborn in the theatre of the 21st century because only then could the "future of art" he preached come about Moreover, Korsunovas tried to demonstrate that Bulkhakov's work could be incorporated within the space of such a theatre. Dedicated readers of the novel found the director's artistic deformation of its nostalgic layers hard to stomach. The controversial concept can be confusing and irritating, and those who associate Korsunovas with an objectionable yet inevitable turn of epochs can justifiably quote Bulkhakov's dismissive The Hell with mechanics! I'm tired." The OKT chose a most suitable logo for itself a Hieroglyph designed by Daniil Kharms; "the sign - the goal - the center of energy pure space." The theatre has clearly set a goal for itself, and operates as a center of energy. Having followed the pace and prolific productions of his younger colleague, Eimuntas Nekrosius once asked rhetorically: "But what will he be doing later?" The answer is logical: next comes pure space. Ramune Marcinkeviciute OSKARAS KORSUNOVAS Oskaras Korsunovas was born in 1969 in Vilnius. From 1989 to 1993 studied in the Music Academy of Lithuania as a theatre director, under direc-