Between new realism and myth: visions of contemporary society on Lithuanian theatre stage

The article analyses different ways of interpreting and presenting social realities on contemporary Lithuanian thea-tre stage. While analysing Lithuanian performances of the last two decades one might state that the increasing number of works deal with the problems of contemporary social reality, new identities and sociocultural phenom-enons. However there is a substancial difference between performances produced during the first decade of the Independence and the ones produced during the second one. During the first decade Lithuanian theatre direc-tors tried to contemplate about emerging realities and social problems with the help of contemporary drama texts, whereas during the second decade the new modes of reflection of relevant societal topics began to take shape: per-sonal stories, unmediated presence of actors, deconstruction of canonic texts or images. With the help of two case studies – performance of Mark Ravenhill’s shoping and Fucking(1999, OKT) and oedipus the king(2002, OKT) by Sophocles, both directed by Oskaras Koršunovas the analysis of different possibilities of reflecting contemporary re-alities onstage is performed. At the same time article raised more general questions about the notions and strategies of social / political theatre in post-soviet LithuaniaTeatrologijos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta