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| Photo by Dmitrij Matvejev |
Ivaškevičius is one of the most interesting playwrights of the young generation. He has directed a play on World War II and deportation all by himself. The play is about two separated families: Lithuanian and Siberian. Can an uprooted member from one family fill in the gaping emptiness of the other household? Four actors speak two languages: Lithuanian and Russian. Do they have the same things in mind?
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The action takes place in pre-war, the Second World War and post-war times. The location – Lithuania and Siberia. The theme – “love, hat, excrement and fur coat” or the war, deportation, love and death. Malыš is a bilingual (in Lithuanian and Russian) lyric “thriller,” full of poetic paradoxes, and mild grotesque (…) Ivaškevičius distances himself from the horror of war and deportation. He “doesn’t drill holes in wounds” or scream, or threaten anyone. He neither judges, nor justifies. He just shows a fragment of a situation with a bitter smile on his face and it’s enough for you to recognize everything.
By Valdas Gedgaudas. Good Luck, Director! (Lith. Sėkmės, režisieriau!). Veidas, 21-03-2002
There is no dirt, no misery, no dramatization. Two snow-white platforms with two bas-reliefs depicting domestic appliances are like two parts of a single object, the only difference being a real scythe in one of the bas-reliefs. Two tables serving as an inadequate link between two worlds. All of a sudden, having switched their families and places, the Father and Lionia will sit by those tables, drink from metal cups and smoke a “peace-cigarette” after 1945.
By Rasa Vasinauskaitė. To Adapt – from the Word to Live (Lith. Prigyti – nuo žodžio gyventi). Verslo žinios, 29-03-2002
The Father by Arvydas Dapšys is intelligent in a Lithuanian-like way. He patiently combines compromises, soft principles and auto-irony, a fairly strong instinct of surviving and scruples, harshness, romantics and consideration for “the others.” He is a constantly operating antenna receiving existent and non-existent opinions of “the others” about him. (…) From the very beginning, Silvija by Gabrielė Kuodytė is only a daughter. The daughter who has been left behind, who is still waiting, no matter what happens. This feature of hers is stronger than her femininity. Therefore, she is not capable of accepting Lionia into her inner home. Despite of all of his tanks and inexhaustible energy, Liona – Malыš (by Algirdas Dainavičius) reminds of a boy playing war rather than a soldier, a threatening and aggressive occupant.
By Vlada Kalpokaitė. Chronicles of War from the World of Children (Lith. Vaikų pasaulio mūšių kronika. Teatras, No. 1, 2002
