RHESANIUMS

The performance will be accompanied by a one-day exhibition, located in the foyer of the Chamber Stage.

“Rhesanium” is a performance of the Subject Theater designed for adults. The poeticism of the main character, Louis Reza, justifies the choice of artistic means: speaking with allusions, metaphorism, lyricism. The founder of the Stalo teatras, director Saulė Degutytė, and her creative team focused their artistic imagination on Rėza's life and brought to the surface what can be read between the lines of the biography. With the tools of the Theater of the Subject, one can tell about what no study or biography could reveal. Through premonitions, allusions, animated and humanized objects, the great metaphysics of human life speak to the viewer. What cannot be said becomes felt and lived together.

In the hour-long performance of “Rhesanium”, the hero's life path unfolds and sounds like music: from homelessness to Rhesanium, a home for poor students, founded by Reza.

From the details are created portraits of other characters, representing the era and environment of Reza. We even hear excerpts from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the preaching teachings of the Seasons of Donelaitis addressed to people of good will. The letters that spilled out of the ambulance going down the mail line are starting to speak. It turns out that the inhabitants of the land of the past are alive, giving news and giving advice.

Born from the artistic intuition of the creators, the show allows us to touch the life of Louis Reza and discover what could have been accidentally lost between facts and knowledge. In this way, the encyclopedic personality becomes alive, transmits its human wisdom, current in every era and in every stage of life.

Ludwik Reza (lit. Martynas Liudvikas Rėza, German Ludwig Rhesa, 1776 — 1840), born in the village of Karvaity (lit. Karvaičiai) on the Curonian Spit, which was buried by dunes, orphaned early and raised by relatives, won recognition and academic titles at the Royal University, for many years he was also its rector. A student of Kant, a professor of theology, a participant in the Napoleonic wars as a military chaplain, a long-time head of the Lithuanian Seminary in Albertina - the list of merits of Reza is huge. The Królewiecki scholar has great merit for the development of Lithuanian literature and literature in the Kingdom of Prussia: he is the discoverer, publisher and translator into German of the didactic poem The Season (Metai) by Kristijonas Doneliatiis (1818), who today is considered the father of Lithuanian literature. In addition, he is the publisher of a new translation of the Bible in Lithuanian (1835). He collected Lithuanian folk songs (dajny), which he published together with his translation into German in 1825. Reza was also a capable poet, showing his dual belonging to two nations in a two-volume collection of poems in German entitled Prutena (1809, 1825).

In 2026, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Ludwik Reza — a Borussian, a Borussian, a man who has made the Lithuanian language survive as a language of folk songs and great literature. It is important that the play “Rhesanium”, whose name refers both to Reza's life work and to his posthumous foundation of the same name — a house for poor students, was shown in Sejny, Warsaw and Olsztyn. The State Archive in Olsztyn contains archival materials related to Reza's activities at the University of Królewiecki, APO is preparing an exhibition on the occasion of the jubilee. The Polish translation of Kristojonas Donelaitis's Seasons by Zygmunt Ławrynowicz was published in the Olsztyn publishing house Pojezierce in 1982. Reza's surprising poems from Pruten's collection, steeped in the history, mythology and culture of the region, await their Polish translation.

It is no coincidence that the creators of the show decided to show the show in three selected cities in Poland. In Olsztyn — due to the aforementioned links with the legacy of Ludwik Reza and his “Borussian” affiliation. The Border Foundation in Sejny, which nurtures links with Lithuanian culture, is a place where the story of the Man who discovered Lithuanian literature and popularized the Dajna will be heard in Lithuanian. The Lithuanian Culture Centre at the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Poland is a place of synergy of contemporary Lithuanian culture.

Before the performance, a brief introduction to the life and work of Ludwik Reza (Dr. Alina Kuzborska) is planned, after the performance, interaction with the audience and joint singing of the dynas from Reza's collection is planned. The English translation of the monodrama will be displayed on the screen.

The performances of the Theater of the Table in Poland are financed by the Lithuanian side.