Three questions to Kamilė Gudmonaitė, director of UNSPOKEN
Dear Kamilė, this is your first work at the Deutsches Theater. How did the idea for the production come about?
I have done research based projects with different society groups: prisoners, people with special needs (disabilities). First time I worked with young adults was 2020 in Tallinn, Vaba Lava theatre, where I created performance on the topic of generational conflict.
For this I decided to interview my own mother and during the rehearsal process it became clear that I need to use the video of our conversation on stage. For this, I interviewed my own mother, among others. During rehearsals, I realized that I had to use the video of our conversation on stage. The conversation itself and also making it a part of the performance (and also my mum seeing it) started transforming our relationship: it was the beginning for us being open to each other, befriending each other, getting to know each other more. I understood that this is the biggest gift I can give to the young people with theatre: a real, honest conversation with their parents. So I wanted to share it.
I have done research based projects with different society groups: prisoners, people with special needs (disabilities). First time I worked with young adults was 2020 in Tallinn, Vaba Lava theatre, where I created performance on the topic of generational conflict.
For this I decided to interview my own mother and during the rehearsal process it became clear that I need to use the video of our conversation on stage. For this, I interviewed my own mother, among others. During rehearsals, I realized that I had to use the video of our conversation on stage. The conversation itself and also making it a part of the performance (and also my mum seeing it) started transforming our relationship: it was the beginning for us being open to each other, befriending each other, getting to know each other more. I understood that this is the biggest gift I can give to the young people with theatre: a real, honest conversation with their parents. So I wanted to share it.
Relationships between children and parents are micro version, the cell of our society which shows and reflects all societal traumas we have. And the earlier we start communicating, the better we relate to everything that surrounds us: humans, trees, crystals – other living creatures. When we started doing research together with young adults, the process before even getting on rehearsal stage was already fulfilling. And then there are other parts I was interested in: what questions youngsters in Berlin have for their parents? Are they so much different from my generation? What is their main concern regarding the world and relationships? I was amazed how deeply they think and what topics they are into.
In the production UNSPOKEN we also encounter the question: A docu-opera, what is that actually? How would you explain your working method and your artistic approach to this genre?
I am very much interested in two things: anthropological approach to theatre and sound. I enjoy making research on different aspects of humanity and for this I immerse myself in subcultures, cultures, marginalized situations, different human behavior. But then I am not stopping at verbatim or documentary theatre – I use the elements of it and with adding sound and image create new territory which widens the meaning of documentary material itself. These two seemingly incompatible phenomena, which exist in different poles of theatre, gives me new artistic approach and allows me mediate reality while also being very close to different social issues I usually address. Then the docu-opera is being born.
Where do you get the courage to tackle such intense topics with young people and to work on them artistically on stage?
The courage to act comes first and foremost from an inner discontent, from a desire to make a difference, and sometimes simply to understand different parts of society and oneself. The desire to connect disconnected territories, the constant effort to seek dialogue and to learn how to talk apparently comes from my childhood experiences in a post-Soviet country. I belong to the first generation that grew up in independent Lithuania and my childhood and adolescence were accompanied by certain traumas: in the Soviet reality it was not possible to talk about things that mattered, so my grandparents, my parents, and then me learned to adapt and not to talk at all: about feelings, inner experiences, events, relationships. The 90's saw the highest number of suicides: after independence the new values no longer corresponded to the old history that my parents had been learning all their lives in Soviet schools. The first 10 years of independence was pretty chaotic: the new world must have taken place and it wasn’t easy to deal with what Soviet one left. This led my generation to grow up in the atmosphere where alcohol, violence, not much of psychological knowledge was a general feature of life. When you have no one to talk to about experiences, they are unfortunately magnified. When the pain or any discontent increases very much that you cannot handle it anymore, you have no choice but to go beyond yourself and find the answers to your questions. That is how courage comes. That is how you start to do what you cannot not do. The feelings untold and not understood must find their way. So, the answer is probably simple – I want to find the cracks in families and society in order to glue my own together.
Questions: Christiane Lehmann
In the production UNSPOKEN we also encounter the question: A docu-opera, what is that actually? How would you explain your working method and your artistic approach to this genre?
I am very much interested in two things: anthropological approach to theatre and sound. I enjoy making research on different aspects of humanity and for this I immerse myself in subcultures, cultures, marginalized situations, different human behavior. But then I am not stopping at verbatim or documentary theatre – I use the elements of it and with adding sound and image create new territory which widens the meaning of documentary material itself. These two seemingly incompatible phenomena, which exist in different poles of theatre, gives me new artistic approach and allows me mediate reality while also being very close to different social issues I usually address. Then the docu-opera is being born.
Where do you get the courage to tackle such intense topics with young people and to work on them artistically on stage?
The courage to act comes first and foremost from an inner discontent, from a desire to make a difference, and sometimes simply to understand different parts of society and oneself. The desire to connect disconnected territories, the constant effort to seek dialogue and to learn how to talk apparently comes from my childhood experiences in a post-Soviet country. I belong to the first generation that grew up in independent Lithuania and my childhood and adolescence were accompanied by certain traumas: in the Soviet reality it was not possible to talk about things that mattered, so my grandparents, my parents, and then me learned to adapt and not to talk at all: about feelings, inner experiences, events, relationships. The 90's saw the highest number of suicides: after independence the new values no longer corresponded to the old history that my parents had been learning all their lives in Soviet schools. The first 10 years of independence was pretty chaotic: the new world must have taken place and it wasn’t easy to deal with what Soviet one left. This led my generation to grow up in the atmosphere where alcohol, violence, not much of psychological knowledge was a general feature of life. When you have no one to talk to about experiences, they are unfortunately magnified. When the pain or any discontent increases very much that you cannot handle it anymore, you have no choice but to go beyond yourself and find the answers to your questions. That is how courage comes. That is how you start to do what you cannot not do. The feelings untold and not understood must find their way. So, the answer is probably simple – I want to find the cracks in families and society in order to glue my own together.
Questions: Christiane Lehmann