50 Ways To Murder Magic

A ritual meta-performance

This performance explores the creative process and the illusion created by theatre: the actor’s relationship with their character and theatre’s relationship with reality. It is a meta-performance in which the audience observes the audience, while actors play actors—Augustė and Augustė, Povilas and Povilas.

The work is inspired by the writings and drawings of French avant-garde artist Antonin Artaud. Its title is an interpretation of Artaud’s sketchbook 50 Drawings to Murder Magic.

Can we turn our backs on reality and dance carelessly through life? Are there no windows in the auditorium because theatre refuses to see reality? Or, on the contrary, is theatre reality’s double—a distorted and intensified reflection that reveals the hidden, instinctive truths of human existence?

Through this work, we seek to awaken the audience’s dormant consciousness and draw it into the deepest recesses of fear, hallucination, dreams, and unrealised desires, so that, upon returning, it might be transformed and acquire a new quality.

During the performance, you will encounter:

Mirrors and illusions
Fitness exercises and magic tricks
An impossible yoga session
Surgery on non-existent organs
A dance of the Myanmar coup
The alphabet of inner noise
And… a collective ILLUSION-TREMBLE!

Team: