Directed by Auksė Petrulienė and Darius Petrulis
Puppets – Auksė Petrulienė
Music – Jan Maksimovič
Performed by Auksė Petrulienė

Photos by Darius Petrulis

This time a play that’s been shown for a decade turns away from Oscar Wildes’ tale A Fisherman and His Soul that has inspired it in the first place. This tale tells a story of a young fisherman who falls in love with a mermaid, but who has to give up his soul to be with his beloved, since sea dwellers do not have a soul. In this tale Oscar Wilde breaks down a person into parts – his body (a heart) and his soul (his breath) have lost their unity and are longing for each other.
A new interpretation of Psilicone theatre puts Victorian tale into the present – a pandemic-stricken world, where breathing – simply inhaling and exhaling – gains true existential meaning.
This idea is skilfully voiced by Jan Maksimovič’s saxophone – ‘a breathing music’ the sounds of which are determined not only by pitch or an instrument itself, but also by a complicated breathing technique.
After participating in various festivals in Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland and Croatia, this performance comes back to Klaipėda to remind us a phrase once said by Ovidius and now constantly reminded to us by pulmonologists: ‘While I breath, I hope’ (‘Dum spiro, spero’, Ovidius).

Actors of the Psilicone theatre are miniature silicone dolls. These dolls are animated via unique technique – by pressing flexible and sturdy bodies of the dolls between two transparent sheets of glass, while filming and projecting this process into a huge colourful projection. The founders of this visual theatre Auksė and Darius Petruliai use visual projections like an x-ray: they analyze the sore spots of our society, the maps of abandoned places and people, finding documentary stories, transforming them and giving them back to the audience.