Vitalijaus Mazūro aukso amžius

• Lietuvių kalba / Lithuanian
• Rusų kalba / Russian

LTŠiandien jau niekam nekyla abejonių, kad ryškiausia XX a. antrosios pusės lėlių teatro figūra Lietuvoje - dailininkas scenografas, ilgainiui tapęs režisieriumi, Vitalijus Mazūras. Jo kūryba darė įtaką ne tik Lietuvos, bet ir "artimojo užsienio" lėlininkams. Būtent jo "kūrybinė individualybė lėmė šio laikotarpio teatro kūrybinę programą, jos savitą, o kartu polemišką kryptį, kuri iš dalies sutapo ir su visos lietuvių poezijos, dailės ir muzikos atsinaujinimo banga bei ieškojimais". Jau beveik penkiasdešimt metų Vitalijus Mazūras dirba teatre. Kūrybiniai interesai nuo pat jaunystės šakojosi taip plačiai, kad net nežinia, kaip apibrėžti jo profesiją - scenografas, lėlininkas, skulptorius, režisierius? Pats nurodo: "Nesu lėlininkas, esu - menininkas". Jo, kaip kiekvieno talentingo autoriaus, kūrybą gaubia paslaptis, tiek spektaklius, tiek paveikslus galima interpretuoti labai įvairiai, esama nelygumų, prieštaravimų, bet jie tik dar labiau skatina gilintis ir jaudintis, žavėtis ir klausti. Įdomu suvokti tokio įnoringo talento prigimtį, paanalizuoti įtampas, kankinusias tiek patį menininką, tiek teatrą, staigius posūkius, kurie glumino jam ištikimus vertintojus. Žinoma, viską aprėpti vargu ar įmanoma, nes Mazūras sukūrė maždaug pusšimtį spektaklių "Lėlėje" (kartais jis būdavo tik scenografas, kartais ir režisierius), apie keturias dešimtis Kauno lėlių teatre, vienuolika spektaklių Valstybiniame jaunimo teatre, po kelis kituose dramos ir muzikiniuose teatruose, dirbo užsienio scenose - Jugoslavijoje, Rusijoje, Danijoje, Latvijoje. Kokie dešimt iš tų spektaklių - šedevrai, kai Mazūras kūrė tiek scenovaizdį, tiek pats režisavo, dažniausiai Vilniaus teatre "Lėlė". Taigi Vitalijus Mazūras - neabejotinai reikšmingiausias Lietuvos lėlių teatro menininkas mūsų laikais. [...] [p. 9-10].

ENVitalijus Mazūras, a stage designer turned theatre director, undoubtedly is the most distinctive figure in the Lithuanian puppet theatre of the second half of the 20th century. His art has influenced not only Lithuanian but also foreign puppeteers and puppet designers. His "artistic individuality shaped the creative programme of the theatre of the time and the particularly polemic direction it was taking, partially coinciding with the impulse for renewal and experiments which was also affecting Lithuanian poetry, art, and music". Mazūras has worked in the theatre for nearly fifty years now. His artistic interests have branched off into so many different directions that his profession is not so easy to define: is he a stage designer, a puppeteer, a puppet maker, a sculptor, or a theatre director? He himself says, "I'm not a puppeteer, I'm an artist". His work, like that of any talented artist, is veiled in secrecy. Both his performances and his paintings can be interpreted in very different ways; there are inconsistencies and contradictions in them, but these only encourage the audience to probe deeper and to get excited, to admire and to ask questions. It is interesting to explore the origins of such a whimsical talent as well as to analyze the tensions which have bothered both the artist and the theatre, or various sudden turns which have puzzled his faithful critics. Of course, it is hardly possible to encompass everything: Mazūras, after all, has worked on nearly fifty performances at Vilnius Puppet Theatre Lėlė, on about forty at Kaunas Puppet Theatre, on eleven at the State Youth Theatre of Lithuania, and on numerous others at other drama and musical theatres, sometimes as a stage designer and at other times as a director as well; he has also worked abroad, in Yugoslavia, Russia, Denmark, and Latvia.At least ten of Mazūras's performances have been acknowledged as masterpieces; most of them were staged at puppet theatres, and he created the stage design and directed himself. Thus Mazūras is undoubtedly the most significant artist in the Lithuanian puppet theatre of our times. Stasys Ušinskas, who opened the Theatre of Marionettes in 1936, was the pioneer and the founding father of the Lithuanian professional puppet theatre; however, his work could not be developed to its fullest. After approximately a year, the theatre had to close due to the shortage of money and the lack of state support, even though its influence can still be felt today, not limited to the domain of the puppet theatre. Mazūras seems to have been destined to accomplish major deeds from the very beginning. Having turned away from the theatre of the people and the everyday images which imitate life, Mazūras returned the "puppet-ness" to the puppet theatre, underscoring its unique distinctive features. He introduced many innovations when it comes to the technical side of the puppets and the devices used to manipulate them. He enriched the genre system and the set of imagery used in the puppet theatre, favouring images that suggest instead of stating. He imagined and worked to create a theatre in which puppets and actors would not be rigidly disconnected, and a talented actor would act as universal. In other words, Mazūras dreamed of a universal theatre and a universal actor, both of whom would know and be able to do anything. His incessant experiments and explorations of ever new domains as well as his remarkable work results are the reason why Vilnius Puppet Theatre Lėlė has been popularly called Mazūras's theatre for so long.Speaking of the triumph of visuality in the Lithuanian theatre, Rasa Vasinauskaitė highlights the fact that Mazūras is one of the artists who, early on, became "a live bridge between distinct Lithuanian theatrical traditions, particularly between those of the 1970s and the 1980s, when, after his innovative performances at Kaunas State Drama Theatre, artistic director Jonas Jurašas was forced to leave Lithuania in the early 1970s, and his experiments were continued by Jonas Vaitkus and Eimuntas Nekrošius, in their own ways. After Jurašas's stage debut, the figure of the director-playwright came to dominate the theatre. Mazūras, too, was frequently both the designer and the director of his performances. He thought in theatrical concepts, freely borrowed from and persuasively combined images of Eastern and Western cultures, the man and the mask, a wooden sculpture and a surrealistic figure of a tree stem". Vasinauskaitė supports her arguments with a quotation from Dovydas Judelevičius' article "The Puppet Can Do Anything" ("Lėlė gali viską"): "He [Mazūras] created a theatre exceptionally full of images; instead of the illusion of the realism of the puppet, he brought into the foreground various odd creatures, even if the spectator was a child. This opened up a large space for metaphoricity". An all-seeing sun, accompanying the travellers; little shepherds, sculpted or lathed from wood like children's toys; oxen harnessed in a yoke; a couple of the newlyweds, glued to one another for life; white storks and little lambs with twisted horns, embroidered on a rug; an old violinist, grown together with his violin; a disorderly gaggle of baby geese: an entire world is created from twigs of willow, from straw and wood, from coarse canvas and ropes. [...].