"Our" / "my" history: the convergences of memory and experience in theatrical representations of history

The specificities of Lithuanian political history of the 20th century have determined the heroic-romantic nature of theatrical representations of national history (historical memory as “our” sacred collective memory). However, Lithuania’s independence had the effect of estranging historical memory which resulted in the questioning of “our” history onstage and searching for a possible personal relationship to national historical memory. The fall of “our” history proceeded, while simultaneously provoking more and more recognizable attempts to rediscover, reestablish and renew the concept of “our” history. This ambivalence of “our”/“my” history can be fully traced in three different, but equally important contemporary theatre productions: 1) “Madagaskaras” (“Madagascar”, 2004) presented an original/unconventional way of reading the archives of collective historical memory and its concealed peripheries, a way that implied the strategies of “new historicism” methodology; 2) “Katedra” (“The Cathedral”, 2012) established and honoured a kind of “realm of memory/memories” as well as attempted to colour it with today’s true sincerity of personal nostalgia; 3) “Barikados” (“Barricades”, 2014) openly analysed the possibilities of turning historical memory into personal experience, while playing with the concepts of historicist and actor, witness and re-teller, quoting history and improvising/fantasising about history, honouring historical memory and distancing oneself from it, etc