Translated from Russian by Juozas Paukštelis and Motiejus Miškinis

The play is based on Anton Chekhov’s stories “The Ward No. 6” and “The Black Monk”. The play focuses on the fateful meeting of a doctor and a patient. Both are interested in and troubled by fundamental questions of human existence, faith or disbelief, life, death, and immortality. How to live? What to choose? Whether to stay as a part of a shallow and lousy society or step back to loneliness and live in the world of fantasies, ideas, and even hallucinations? Whether to sensitively react to the environment or keep to the philosophical world view where the feeling of satisfaction can be found only in yourself? What is wellness, and where does the illness start? What is the difference between the theory and the real-life? Is the ward a prison or a citadel or a lee which could it be a place to get better, where a person finds the inner-self again? These are the questions and topics that set apart and bring back together the heroes of the play. The ward and its only habitant attracts doctor Ragin like a magnet. Visits to the patient become more and more frequent…

Opening – November 13-14, 2009

Duration – 1 hour 50 minutes (without intermission)

The Long Hall

Photographer Dmitrijus Matvejevas