Photo by Robertas Pledas

The actress, director and poet Birutė Mar (b. 1969) writes plays for her own performances, most of which are mono-dramas. Her plays are usually based on biographies and historical facts. One of her favourite topics is the lives of female Lithuanian artists. The actress writes and directs her own creative work. She pays a lot of attention to her characters, the twists and turns of their lives and their mood swings. She is interested in literary diaries, the epistolary genre and similar, which become excellent material for her creative work. Birutė Mar tours more than most Lithuanian theatre creators. She has attended a lot of mono festivals abroad and won a number of awards. 

Ledo vaikai (Children of Ice, 2015) is a play in one act and a mono-drama based on the memories of the Lithuanians who were exiled to Siberia during 1941–1956, including the author’s parents and grandparents. The actress creates dramatic tension by combining the joy of living in the moment, experienced by the children, with the pain and despair of the exiles. Birutė’s parents were young children during the exile. Therefore, according to the artist, they remembered the magnificently beautiful Northern Lights, paper dolls and a handful of grain at Christmas time, and a little white bear which the teacher made the children share a cold classroom with as a punishment…