When this decade turned and changed, so too did the countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. Like a wave washing across the political and geographic boundaries, walls both physical and political collapsed with a speed that astonished the world. The most potent symbol of the changes was the destruction of the Berlin Wall, which re-emerged almost overnight in tiny fragments everywhere, from earrings and paperweights in London's Camden Market, to chunks taken home in rucksacks by the curious thousands who went to Berlin to witness history for themselves.

They were heady times, which had people taking out their atlases and looking to see where exactly these countries were located, some of which, like Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, were as mysterious to most Western Europeans, and as little-visited until this decade as Tibet had once been.

On Christmas Eve, December 1990, Lithuania's Small Theatre of Vilnius staged its critically acclaimed production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard for the first time. The production had been a year in rehearsal, in the style of Eastern European companies, where ensemble casts work in repertoire. At a time when there was rioting on the streets in protest of Soviet occupation, staging a play by a Russian writer was bound to have audiences seeking and finding extra dimensions within the production.

"First we were afraid nobody would come to the play; that they wouldn't see the difference between a Russian writer and the Soviets on our streets outside. But they did come," explains Rimas Tuminas, the muchlauded director of the Small Theatre of Vilnius; a wiry, fiery, chain-smoking man who incites passion and admiration in all those who have worked with him. "The words of Chekhov turned out to be contemporary, to be true for our own situation at the time in Lithuania." With a curfew in place, and the noise from the riots literally at the theatre doors, many lines from the play, such as these from Act Two, took on powerful contemporary resonances with the tense and watchful citizens of Lithuania.

Suddenly there is a distant sound, as if from the sky: the sound of a breaking string.

Ranyevskaya: What was that?

Lopakhin: I don't know. Somewhere a long way off, in the mines, a winding cable has parted...

Firs: It was the same before the troubles. The owl screeched, and the samovar moaned without stop.

Gayev: Before what troubles?

Firs: Before the Freedom.

"Theatre was repeating the action of what was happening outside on the streets," Tuminas says. "Chekhov was a mirror people came to look into and read between the lines."

Less than three weeks after The Cherry Orchard opened, Lithuania was stormed by Soviet troops. In Vilnius that January of 1991, 14 people who were among the crowd protecting the TV tower from being occupied, were shot dead, focusing international attention on the situation. It was to be the defining moment in Lithuania's surge for independence. Tuminas's Cherry Orchard straddled the change between occupation and independence, and is assured of its place in Lithuania's history.

Since independence, the Small Theatre of Vilnius have periodically toured their productions abroad, to places including Toronto, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Brighton, Zurich, and Bonn. In the process, they have won several awards, and received ecstatic reviews. This year, they are coming to Ireland for the first time, bringing two shows to the Belfast Arts Festival. One is Mikhail Lermontov's Masquerade, and the other is the one which has become the company's flagship production - The Cherry Orchard.

"These two shows are the most popular in the repertoire," explains translator Daiva Dapsiene. "Everyone here has seen them many times. People quote lines of Chevkov to each other like it is part of their lives." Theatre in Lithuania is still heavily subsidised by the state, although the corporate businesses that have arrived since independence are also now part-funding productions. It costs between 10 and 15 litas for a theatre ticket (£1.80 - 2.75); still an exceptionally inexpensive night out for local people, and this is one of the reasons why theatre-going is such an integral part of Lithuanian culture.

Home for the Small Theatre is a cavernous theatre on one of Vilnius's newer streets, Gedimino. Although there is a McDonald's across the road from the theatre, and shops nearby selling Armani, Gucci, and Versace, not everything in Lithuania has kept apace of the fevered western changes to the city.

The heating, for instance, is still centrally controlled, as it was in communist days. The temperature has to have been below a certain point for at least a week before the heating will be switched on in apartments and public buildings. Hence earlier this month, as I arrived to watch Masquerade, the icy, draughty theatre was full of people wrapped in overcoats and shawls that they discarded for interval drinks in the foyer and then pulled on again once they had retaken their seats for the second act.

Masquerade is a show which must evoke a sensation of chill under any circumstances, since the entire performance is played out on a snow-covered stage. It's a rhymed play by Mikhail Lermontov, translated into Lithuanian from Russian by Vytautas Bloze, and was first performed by the company in February 1997.

The "masquerade" of the title refers to a ball we never see, at which a bracelet gets lost, with fatal consequences for the owner, Nina (Adrija Cepaite) whose husband Arbenin (Arvdyas Dapsys) suspects her of giving it to another lover.

The bracelet becomes a symbol of all that's best and worst in human nature: illustrating a universal story of suspected infidelity, female innocence, male jealousy, and pointless revenge. The inventive staging and strong visual impact is what marks out this show as something special, and which constantly surprises.

Time passing is marked by snowballs of ever-increasing sizes being rolled across the stage by a silent clownlike character (Andrius Zebrauskas). In the starkest of sets, periodic snowfalls punctuate scenes, and skaters glide across the stage like the romantic little figures seen in glass snow domes. Fireworks unexpectedly streak over the actors like shooting stars. A huge fish emerges from the ice and sinks back again, almost unnoticed.

The omnipresent, ever-falling snow and the ever larger snowballs take on a character of their own. As in the duplicity of Nina's jealous husband, Arbenin, the snow masks and hides what really lies beyond the surface. Its changes mirror his.

AS the performance opens, the snow is something playful, to be thrown in handfuls at each other for fun. Later, it becomes ever more malevolent, the snowballs huge enough to crush a person beneath their huge compacted mass. Finally, Nina's death by poison is conveyed with cruel beauty by the snow that falls and covers her as she stands statue-still and frozen.

"When I was a child, I used to love making snowballs," Tuminas recounts, who also designs all his productions. "I was always trying to make them as big as possible. Later, we made fortresses, huge palaces of snow. Usually, I'd come home without a scarf or a mitten or something. Once I came home and I had lost my mittens again, and my father was so angry he made me go back out to look for them. I had to destroy the fortress we had made to try and find the mitten. I am still looking for it."

He tells the story as an analogy for the way he continues to try to discover dimensions of experience by constantly making and remaking his productions, with his 18-strong cast. "Of course we must keep the plays fresh. That is where working together, as an ensemble cast who work together all the time is such a big advantage. Otherwise, something like The Cherry Orchard would lose its life after nearly 10 years. We are always making it new."

Masquerade is at the Waterfront Hall, November 2nd to 4th at 8 p.m. The Cherry Orchard is at the BT Studio from November 5th to 6th. Both productions are in Lithuanian, with English subtitles.