Premiere: PHILOCTETES. Dir. Cezaris Graužinis

Director and Play Translator – Cezaris Graužinis
Set and Costume Designer – Vytautas Narbutas
Composer – Martynas Bialobžeskis
Choreographer – Edgen Lame
Assistant Director – Tauras Čižas
Lighting – Alekos Yannaros (Zouganeli OE)

Cast: Cezaris Graužinis, Žygimantas Vainauskas, Gediminas Storpirštis, Viktorija Kuodytė, Rūta Jonikaitė, Gintautė Rusteikaitė, Lukas Petrauskas

Director Cezaris Graužinis, who has been living and working in Greece for the past two decades, returns to Lithuanian theatre with this production of Sophocles' tragedy “Philoctetes” – specifically to the State Youth Theatre, where he once began his creative journey.

“The essence of Sophocles' tragedy “Philoctetes” is a fierce moral and political conflict between the strict code of values of the older generation of heroes (Achilles, Heracles, Philoctetes) and Odysseus, who symbolizes the ideology of the new generation, with his agile pragmatism and ambitions unconstrained by ethical scruples. This is a cyclically recurring conflict between the “old world,” where belief in the possibility of utopia is still strong, and the “more advanced” realpolitik world, which values only what is “realistically possible.” For the sake of progress, Sophocles ironically and provocatively suggests, we should reject categories of honor, justice, and compassion as having no practical significance, so that we can claim to pursue benefits for the community to which we belong and for whose well-being we are all equally responsible.

This tragedy gives us the opportunity to rediscover the beauty of human critical thinking and the power of compassion. Sophocles invites us to understand that the greatest art we are destined to learn is the art of overcoming the conflict between the individual and the community.” – says director Cezaris Graužinis.

Premiere: September 19, 2026

Patron of the performance: Embassy of the Hellenic Republic in Lithuania