More than a hundred years ago, Maurice Maeterlinck, a Belgian playwright, wrote the play The Blue Bird, since then the Blue Bird has become a symbol of elusive happiness. To this day, people keep searching for this mystical creature, in the hope that they will be able to catch and cage it, or, in other words, they are trying to grab their fortune and keep it forever, without realizing that they do not need to chase it, but should rather learn to recognize it.

The play The Blue Bird by National Kaunas Drama Theatre recreates the Nobel Prize Laureate Maeterlinck’s allegoric tale about two children who are charged with the task of finding and catching the Blue Bird on a dark Christmas night. The children set out on an adventurous and magical journey to fantastic worlds, palaces, and gardens. However, the resolution and courage to cover long distances, encounter the powers of Light and Shade, and Good and Evil are not sufficient to find the Blue Bird: recognizing it requires a simple yet miraculous capability – being able to see the invisible.

Two siblings, a boy called Tyltyl and his sister Mytyl, are given a magical diamond, turning which enables them to see the inherent personalities or the essence of objects and phenomena. The siblings can now see that simple things like Bread, Water, Sugar, and Fire have souls of their own, which helps distinguish and perceive true values. This fantastic story reminds us that traces of happiness may only be detected with our eyes and hearts wide open, and with an innocent glance of a child. We do not have to seek happiness far across the seas for the Blue Bird is flying everywhere, leaving its magical feather in every home. The Bird may just have visited the Land of Memories, home to the ones who passed away, but are still alive because we cherish the memories of them. It may have just perched on a sumptuous palace of Night or has flown over the magic garden, where Bliss of Maternal Love, Bliss of Thinking, and Bliss of Understanding reign; it may have just left the Land of the Future, having touched our dreams… Maybe one does not have to possess the magical gem in order to be able to see a real face of the world because, in the words of  Maurice Maeterlinck, all stones are equally precious, it is just that people do not see the value of them all? This fantastic story invites us to open our eyes widely, to take a close look at the world and our souls, and to achieve a blissful understanding that “we are only worth the happiness that we are capable of perceiving” (Maurice Maeterlinck).

Vaidotas Martinaitis (Director): “I am not afraid of being sentimental, for it is vital to touch the souls of children whose emotional world is negatively affected by modern technology. Though children communicate effectively using technology, they are puzzled by face-to-face communication. The message we are trying to convey by the play is that we must be brave and see it all.”

Opening –  September 9, 10, 17, 2017

Duration  –   2 hours (with intermission)

The Main Stage

Recommende for children aged 7+

Attention! During the performance, theatrical fog is used.

Photographer Donatas Stankevičius