Literatūra (Vilnius) (Jan 2011)
Charleso Dickenso kūrybos recepcija Lietuvoje: sceninės adaptacijos ir kritikų vertinimas (II dalis). The Lithuanian Reception of Charles Dickens: Theatrical Adaptations and Critical Response to them (Part II)
Abstract
Theatrical productions are always an important aspect in the reception of any author in any country. They are instrumental in promoting the writer and his work, in bringing it closer to the ordinary readership. Particularly so in Lithuania which has a long and lively theatrical tradition of more than 400 years. The Kaunas State Theatre established in 1922 became an important centre in the cultural life of Lithuania and was the only professional theatre organization in Lithuania until 1931, which dramatized and performed Dickens’s works, among others. Stage adaptations played an important role in the reception of Dickens’s art, particularly in the inter-war period in the 1920s and 1930s: they were instrumental in the promotion of Dickensian image, in the dissemination of his writing and in enhancing its popularity; thus Dickens’s name became firmly entrenched in the Lithuanian cultural context. For general readers and theatre audiences Dickens became the most famous, the most representative and the most popular English writer, regarded as an iconic figure in English literature, in stature competing only with Shakespeare.The first theatre production of Dickens’s work in Lithuania was A Christmas Carol; it was put on stage by the famous director Antanas Sutkus in 1927. It was followed by stage adaptations of The Chimes, Oliver Twist and The Cricket on the Hearth.A theatrical production of Dickens’s novel The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club was put on stage on September 29, 2002. Adapted and directed by the actor Sigitas Račkys in early twenty-first century at the Klaipėda Drama Theatre, it really came as a surprise given the temper and tenor of the times which are not very favourable for the reception of Dickens’s writing. And, naturally, the response to it was ambivalent and controversial.By all evidence, the performance was probably not a very successful attempt at the stage production of Dickens’s Pickwick in spite of the director’s efforts and good-will. However, it can be valued as an endeavour to rekindle the contemporary viewers’ and readers’ interest in Dickens’s art, which turned out to be a challenge both for the director Sigitas Račkys and his team of actors.
