By Grace Hatchell
Some theatre productions arrive with a cast of twenty, three revolving sets and enough scenery to give the stage manager a nervous twitch.
A Pebble in the Road arrives with internationally acclaimed actor Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė, one solitary chair and the memories of a small three-room apartment in Vilnius.
And honestly, that sounds far more interesting.
Coming to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2026, the new play takes audiences inside the apartment where Dapkūnaitė grew up and where three generations of women lived through war, occupation, political upheaval, love, loss and all the everyday family business that carries on regardless of what history is doing outside the window.
With the stage almost completely bare, Dapkūnaitė carefully reconstructs the apartment through words. She remembers the furniture, the layout, the tiny architectural details and even the little hook that held her grandmother’s door open.
It is often the smallest things that stay with us, isn’t it? Governments change, borders move and history books get rewritten, but your mind decides that an old door hook is the thing it will keep forever.
Dapkūnaitė says:
“I always thought that the apartment where we spent our lives was our home, but I’ve come to realise that what makes a home is, of course, the people.”
At the heart of the story are the women who shaped her life: her determined grandmother, her glamorous and creative aunt, and Dapkūnaitė herself as a young girl growing up under Soviet occupation.
The production looks at enormous historical events through a child’s eyes, where politics and uncertainty sit alongside humour, imagination and ordinary family life. It explores how people continue loving, laughing and getting on with things even when the world around them has become frighteningly unstable.
The play also follows Dapkūnaitė’s experience of Lithuania’s fight for independence. As a young woman, she joined thousands of fellow Lithuanians in the streets to defend the country’s newly won freedom.
Yet among all those vast and dramatic events, one of her clearest memories remains something wonderfully ordinary.
“Amongst the turbulence of world events, the little hook that held Granny’s door open turns out to be the most vivid memory,” she says.
That line rather gets you, doesn’t it?
An Internationally Acclaimed Performer
Dapkūnaitė is best known internationally for her leading role in the Oscar-winning film Burnt by the Sun, but her career stretches across more than 100 film and television productions.
UK audiences may recognise her as the Russian Ambassador to Norway in Netflix’s political thriller Occupied. Her film credits also include Mission: Impossible and Seven Years in Tibet.
She has served on the juries of the Cannes, Berlin and Venice film festivals, which is a fairly impressive collection of places to have worn a lanyard.
Alongside her screen career, Dapkūnaitė has performed extensively on stage in London, Europe, the United States and Russia. She has also enjoyed a longstanding creative collaboration with actor and director John Malkovich.
Directed by Fringe Veteran Simon Stokes
The production is directed by Simon Stokes, whose first Edinburgh Fringe took place in 1975.
Yes, 1975.
That gives him more Fringe experience than some venues have had functioning plumbing.
Across a five-decade career, Stokes has directed leading actors including Mark Rylance, Julie Walters, Simon Callow, Celia Imrie and John Malkovich.
Dapkūnaitė has said the play reflects Salman Rushdie’s observation that history is never completely settled. It is constantly discussed, challenged and reinterpreted — and having the freedom to hold those discussions matters.
Through the story of one family living through war, occupation and independence, A Pebble in the Road shows what those enormous political events actually feel like to the ordinary people caught inside them.
It is intimate, deeply personal and filled with the kind of memories that rarely appear in official history books.
Sometimes history is a declaration of independence.
Sometimes it is a grandmother’s door hook.
Usually, it is both.
Show Information
Title: A Pebble in the Road
Dates: 5–31 August 2026
There are no performances on 12, 17 or 24 August.
Time: 1.35pm
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard, 60 Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9TJ
Ticket prices: From £9.50 for previews and from £14 for standard performances
Language: English
Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Age guidance: 12+
Performer: Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė
Director: Simon Stokes
Presented and produced by: Simon Stokes and Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė
Content warnings: References to death, violence and war, together with discussions of grief
Full performance dates and ticket availability can be found through the Pleasance website.
A Pebble in the Road | Pleasance Theatre Trust
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