Rimas Tuminas: A Poetic View of Theatre

This chapter is devoted to Rimas Tuminas, the first Lithuanian director to found a new theatre in Lithuania after his country regained independence and the first foreign citizen to be appointed as an artistic director of a Russian state federal theatre. His working life since the years of professional education has ever been developing in the context of both Lithuanian theatre and Russian theatre. Tuminas’ activities at the “crossroads” of the two cultures, and his openness to contemporary artistic life, let him develop a unique style that has been often called “contemporary theatre poetry” and is now well recognised, particularly in productions based on Russian classical plays. The chapter gives an account of Tuminas’ major performances in the Small Drama Theatre in Vilnius and in the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow, his approach to dramatic texts, style of directing, methods of rehearsals and basic ideas that form his theatre philosophy.