The poster of the new season of the Lithuanian National Drama Theater captured on social networks over the weekend caused quite a stir. The slogan "Don't go to the theater" angered representatives of other theaters, who said that when it is already difficult to invite people to performances in Lithuania, such a slogan is really bad advertising, reports LNK.
"This kind of advertising would work for, say, promoting a show, it wouldn't be anything new, but it would be effective." Just don't go to that show. Just don't go to that show. Just don't go to that show, people would come then, or one performance. When there is a slogan "Don't go to the theater" and that thing affects people subconsciously, others are happy, they don't want to go to the theater. It has a toxic effect on people, I know what propaganda is and how it works," said the director, OKT/Vilnius City Theater artistic director Oskars Koršunovas.
On December 31, the Lithuanian National Drama Theater announced that it was dismissing its then director, director Oskars Koršunovas.
It was announced that from now on the drama theater will be led by three directors - Kamilė Gudmonaitė, Antanas Obcarskas and Eglė Švedkauskaitė.
"In this case, what I'm talking about has nothing to do with the situation that happened, unfortunately, ugly. There is a separate language here, because the national theater can rotate as it wants, it receives 14 million. Meanwhile, other theaters depend on the attendance, on the popularity of the theater as a phenomenon. The hanging slogan is toxic," said Oskars Koršunovas.
"Looking at it now, everything looks terrible. I want to say that we really could not have expected such a public reaction, because this statement of ours "Do not go to the theater" is a hint of our season, artistic program, we will present it next week. We are keeping it a secret and we are very happy that these three words probably reminded the whole of Lithuania that there is a theater, that theater seasons are about to start and you should probably go to the theater," said Antanas Obcarskas, one of the artistic directors of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre.
Other theaters took offense.
"That's why I was completely surprised when we were working with an advertising agency, who were looking for ways to help us broadcast that hint at the beginning of our artistic program. We really didn't think about our colleagues and we didn't want to offend them, whom we know very well and who visit our theater and we visit their theaters. This is perhaps a misunderstanding, but I think that we will all benefit from it," said A. Obcarskas.
It is true that this is not the first time that the Lithuanian National Drama Theater has been forced to react due to its new season posters.
In 2011, people were invited to theaters with the slogan "I will kill", but the Vilnius municipality forced such posters to be hung up and suddenly removed from the city of Vilnius due to negative publicity.
"The question here is what we want to value. Do we want to judge the advertisement itself or do we want to judge the reaction to the advertisement. If evaluating the advertisement itself, the advertisement has its own goals, we don't know those goals, the clients and creators do, we will see based on the results. Presumably the goals are to attract attention and sell tickets. Attention has been drawn, I don't know when was the last time you did a theater report. The biggest scandal is not about politics, not about the fact that some minister said something again, did something, and not even about the family march or anything else. The biggest scandal is about the theater, when was the last time it was like that? We do not know. Today we're talking about the theater, I've never commented on theater advertising in my life," said communication specialist Andrius Baranauskas.
Photo: Lukas Balandis/BNS
