Balys Sruoga’s vision of the future of the theatre from the nazi concentration camp in Stutthof

Abstract

This article discusses two letters sent by the writer and scholar Balys Sruoga from the concentration camp in Stutthof to his wife Vanda Sruogienė. One of these letters was written on May 31, 1944 and later published under the title Teatro romantika (The Romanticism of Theatre), and the other was written on June 5, 1944 and later published as Tikroviškumas vaidybos mene (Verisimilitude in the Art of Acting). In these letters, their writer summarizes the state of the art of theatre on the background of the humanitarian catastrophe in the middle of the 20th century, and offers his prospects for theatre’s evolution. The analysis of Sruoga’s letters aims to determine what kind of evaluation criteria he set for the creators of the future theatre, and to compare these criteria with the theatrical language used by the director Gintaras Varnas in his performance Natanas Išmintingasis (Nathan the Wise) in 2017. After examining the aesthetic and value aspects outlined by Balys Sruoga, we can discern a dialogue with his vision of the future theatre in modern Lithuanian theatre practices. We can surmise that Sruoga’s longing for what he termed “dvasios viešpatystė” (the lordship of spirit) is the beauty of utopia presented in the performance of Nathan the Wise as staged by Gintaras Varnas in 2017.