On March 29 and 30, 2025, as well as on April 8, the long-awaited premiere of the play “Peter Pan” (directed by Karolis Zajauskas) will take place at the Kaunas City Chamber Theatre. Based on the children’s literature classic of the same name by James Matthew Barrie, this production will transform into a fairy tale for adults.
Before the premiere, the theatre’s public relations specialist spoke with the director about his vision for the work.
— Karolis, your work in progress “Peter Pan” won the stage work-in-progress competition organized by the international youth theatre festival “Išeities taškas” in 2023. Now, nearly two years later, the work returns to the stage. How has your vision evolved during this time?
— I had a lot of time to prepare, so interpretive ideas kept changing in my mind, and I considered several different ways of telling the story. There was even a stage when I wanted to completely abandon the original plot, but in the end I decided to return to it. When creating the work in progress, we used scenes from just one chapter of the book, but while developing the full performance, I realized that what worked well in the work in progress doesn’t always work on stage. Preparing for the production, I found a lot of inspiration in studying Barrie’s biography. His life provided a great deal of material, and once you absorb it, the story of Peter Pan shines in entirely new colors.
It is a complex, multi-layered work. At first glance, it is full of youthful charm, laughter, and naivety, but beneath these light emotions lies deep sadness. This sadness stems from the inevitable loneliness that, in the writer’s view, arrives when childhood ends. I set myself the task of turning this fairy tale/comedy into a tragicomedy. The balance between sadness and the lightness written into the text is the greatest challenge. Viewers will recognize elements from the work in progress, but this time within a richer and deeper whole.
— Peter Pan has been staged many times before. What new perspectives will audiences discover in this version?
— I think this Peter Pan will be much more cynical than any previous adaptations in any medium. Neverland will not be a traditional “magical island.” We don’t avoid showing that everything takes place inside a theatre hall. In general, while staging the play, I feel an increasing desire to expose the “magic” of Neverland. I’m less and less inclined to hide stage lights and props that create theatrical illusion and more interested in revealing that artificiality to the audience.
— Peter Pan is an engaging story filled not only with magic and fun adventures but also cruelty. The novel includes killing pirates and mistreated children. Your production also contains violent scenes, staying closer to the original than, for example, Disney adaptations. Did you ever consider removing that cruelty?
— Not at all. Barrie writes that only those who are “gay, innocent, and heartless” can fly. That’s what children are like. While working on the play, I often think of something I once saw. I have a seven-year-old sister who loves snails. One afternoon, she found one on a wall, showed it to me, admired it for about ten seconds, then suddenly threw it aside and walked away. I remember thinking—that’s Peter Pan.
If you look out the window at children playing, you’ll see the most wonderful landscape of Neverland, and in their games, all the cruelty of the world. The difference is that this imagined cruelty has no consequences—it’s just a game. That’s the key to Peter Pan: to play forever without consequences. Play is the main leitmotif of our performance. Children here play everything. Their games are often cruel because they are lost boys who have never known love, and violence is their only form of expression under Peter’s care.
— And Wendy changes that?
— Yes. Wendy is the first to bring warmth and tenderness into their lives. These feelings deeply affect the boys and gradually begin to change them. Over time, they realize that beyond Neverland there is more than fantasy or flight—there is love and closeness. But they can only truly experience these feelings by leaving Neverland.
— Could you tell us more about Neverland itself in your production?
— In the play, Neverland is a room of mirrors—an illusion controlled by Peter Pan. It becomes a grand stage where he can be the hero of all the children. It is his theatre, his world, inviting the lost boys to live in eternal carefree childhood.
Peter is the guardian of the boys on the island. But both he and the lost boys lack one thing—a mother. That’s why he chooses Wendy for that role. Eventually, love develops between them, but it cannot fully blossom because Peter fears responsibility. This unfulfilled love marks the beginning of the collapse of their illusion of a happy family.
— How did the actors prepare to play children?
— Playing a child is not as simple as it might seem (laughs). It would be easy to fall into exaggerated infantilism, so the actors try to awaken their childlike curiosity in different ways. Rehearsals involve intense exploration, which I enjoy watching. The performance is also very physical, with many acrobatic elements, so actors must manage their energy carefully.
Our choreographer Adrian Carlo Bibiano helps greatly in this area, using body language and movement to create the right mindset. This helps actors embark on a daily journey of self-discovery—a very childlike trait. In this performance, the body is one of the key tools for creating a magical atmosphere, so actors worked on endurance, flexibility, and safely performing acrobatics.
— This is a fairy tale for adults. Why did you choose to focus on them?
— Given today’s political and social climate, it seems adults need fairy tales more than ever (laughs). More seriously, I wanted to make the story relevant by exploring how we sometimes remain trapped in our illusions. In that sense, people working in theatre can live quite “Peter Pan–like” lives—creating illusions in closed spaces. I realized I wanted to create a story that young adults could recognize themselves in.
— The crocodile appears in the play as an important symbol. How would you describe it to someone unfamiliar with the book?
— The crocodile is Barrie’s metaphor for time. In the novel, it bites off Captain Hook’s hand and then spends the entire story chasing him. But a clock swallowed along with the hand ticks inside its stomach, warning Hook and allowing him to escape. In our version, since pirates do not appear, the crocodile chases the children instead, reminding them that no game lasts forever.
— When did you first encounter Peter Pan?
— I discovered it at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre when actress Radvilė Budrytė, who plays Wendy, suggested using it for a study assignment. As a child, I was interested in different stories. I started reading early—my grandparents are historians—so I read books like The Twelve Labours of Hercules. Hercules unlocked my imagination, and I wanted to act out his feats in real life.
I grew up in Šiauliai until I was 12. Our house stood on a hill, with a forest below and a strange cabin inside it. I used to imagine witches living there. Beyond the forest was a smelly pond where we caught crayfish. I could see a railway from my window, watching trains day and night. That was my Neverland—every day felt like a new adventure, and I spent hours playing outside with friends.
Photos by Donata Šiaudvytytė from the play’s photoshoot and the personal project “Artists and Their Everyday Life.”
The premiere performances will take place on March 29, 30, and April 8, 2025. Tickets are available through the Kaunas City Chamber Theatre.
