XX gadsimts. Pojezd prizrak. Vission Express
Yasmina Reza "Art",
Alfred de Musset On ne badine pas avec l'amour",
"Piškanderdula"
(subtitled "Jozef"),
The Flight Across the Savannah in Mr. Mirror's Helicopter
XX gadsimts. Pojezd prizrak. Vission Express
New Riga
Theatre
If not for the World War I, our grandfathers and grandmothers would probably
never meet.
2 h 40 min.
Directed by Alvis Hermanis
Performers Māris Liniņš, Vilis Daudziņš, Andis Strods, Baiba
Broka, Kaspars Znotiņš, Zigurds Ēriks Panders, Andris Vītiņš, Dailonis
Rudovics, Modris Gipmanis, Arnolds Zirnītis, Kārlis Anušēvics, Violeta
Straume, Ieva Grotuse, Velta Spurava, Ingrīda Lobko, Emīlija Pirvica,
Melita Ziemele-Kadiķe
Author A.Hermanis (1965) educated as an actor at the Theatre department
of Latvian State Conservatoire, in 1990 underwent in-service training
at theatre atelier of Paris International Youth Theatre. Brought into
Latvian Theatre unorthodox form, undisguised histrionic elements and a
postmodern world view, choosing for production well-known and often scandalous
works like Y.Mishima's "Marquise de Sade", O. Wilde's "The Portrait of
Dorian Gray". The performances are very different aesthetically, but all
of them are characterized by perfect sense of form, style and epoch. His
theatre is a quest for new experience and new limits of reality, involving
audio and visual arts - using video projections, slides and phonograms.
He has also been the playwright, stage designer of and an actor in his
own productions. He has produced 15 theatre performances in Rīga and Tallinn,
as well as the opening production for the newly restored Latvian National
Opera - the opera "Fire and Night". His productions have participated
in international theatre festivals in Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Since
1997 - the director and artistic director of New Rīga Theatre.
The performance is based upon fact, taken from newspapers - one of the unexplained and most superb mysteries of the XX century. In 1911 a train disappeared without any trace in a tunnel in Italy. This ghost train reappeared in the course of the century in different parts of the world in moments crucial to the history of mankind. The project has been devised as a compressed artistic quintessence of the theme - the meeting of the old and new ages. The philosophical inclination echoes the artistic motto of the New Rīga Theatre - "Transit 2000". The director is searching for a context for his very personal feelings; it is a very private farewell to history. Was the XX century good or bad?
Yasmina Reza "Art", Mūris Theater Liepāja, Latvia
"This performance is more about life than about art" (Henriete Švāne)
2h Directed by Lauris Gundars, Stage designer Zigrīda Atāle
Actors Juris Bartkēvičs, Mārtiņš Vilsons, Leons Leščinskis
In 1979, a Frenchwoman, Yasmina Reza, became an actress, but very soon
she wrote her first play, which was followed by "Conversations after the
funeral" /Conversations apres un enterrement/, "Through the winter"/La
traversee de l'hiver/, "ART", "The man of chance" /L'homme du hasard/.
Recently she has published a collection of short stories, "Hammer piano".
The play "ART" has brought unbelievable success to the playwright. Its
first production was staged at the Parisian Champs Elysees Theater of
Comedy, where it was intensively performed for a successive eight months.
At this time, the play gained international recognition at Wyndhams Theatre
in London, Schaubuhne in Berlin, and Moscow Maly Theater, as well as on
Broadway in February, 1998. For a European play, this is an unheard-of
success. The play has won the most distinguished drama awards Moliere,
Lawrence Olivier and Evening Standard prizes; it has also been recognized
as the best contemporary foreign play in Germany. It seems that there
is no country in Europe left that wouldn't have its own production of
ART.
Director Lauris Gundars (1959) Graduated from department of feature film scriptwriters at the Higher Directing and Scriptwriting Courses in Moscow, the faculty of tv program and film directors at the Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography in St.Petersburgh, an the faculty of law at the University of Latvia. Director and playwright, author of scripts for eleven full-length feature films, seven plays and a novel, "Footprints on the Glass Mountain"; three movies based on his scripts are presently in the making, scriptwriter of a soap opera, "Sugar House", on TV Latvia. He has directed six productions in Latvia and Estonia, among them, W.Shakespeare's "Hamlet", an award-winner at the Latvian theater show of 1994 as the season's best debut in directing. L.Gundars is the director of the drama course at the Culture Academy of Latvia; he describes this job as follows: "We know that what the characters says is not at all what he thinks. The structure is what matters: without saying things directly, to make it possible to infer what the character thinks."
Performance "Mūris" is the newest independent theater in Latvia, and the smallest one (4 persons). It was founded on December 27, 1996, in one of the historical buildings of Liepāja. Now the theater has expanded its activities; it organizes seminars and conferences, and has taken over the adjacent XVII century building. The principle of the theater is to address the audience intimately and directly, in a theatrical language of high quality. Three outstanding actors are performing in the production ART; they saturate the characters of Marc, Serge and Yvaine with the animate polisemy of a sincere contact. "A play written with a charming light-heartedness has been transformed into a deeper and more dramatic production about the art of friendship and living." Mārīte Gulbe, a critic.
Alfred de Musset On ne badine pas avec l'amour, Russian Drama
Theatre of Riga, Latvia
2 h 30 min.
Directed by Jelena Nevezhina (Russia)
Stage designer Bruno Roze
Performers Boris Ploskih, Andris Keišs, Dmitrij Palejes, Igor Čerņavskij,
Veronika Plotņikova, Tatjana Lukašenkova, Jūlija Žlukto, Vadim Grosman
In the history of French literature the most striking pages of the life
of Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) have been written by his love story (a
stormy relationship with the writer George Sand) and the short period
of his creative activity (his most famous plays - "Lorenzaccio," "Candlestick",
"No Joking About Love", "Barbarina"). The plays of A. de Musset are written
in the style of "comediens et proverbs", the actions serve as an illustration
to a moralizing dictum. The protagonist's Perdican of "No Joking about
Love" character is formed by a contradiction between scepticism and idealism.
Literary critics have noted the influences of salon comedies, Marivot,
as well as Shakespeare on the creative work of Musset, but in the production
of Y.Nevezhina an even older tradition is brought back to life - Italian
dell'arte.
Director Yelena Nevezhina (1969) graduated from the Department of Law, Moscow Lomonosov University (1992) and Russian Theatre Art Institute (in the master-class of the outstanding master of Russian psychological school Pyotr Fomenko) (1998). J.Nevezhina graduation work - the production of F.G.Krommelink's "Cold and Hot" became the laureate of "Moscow debut" (1998) and was a guest of the "Homo Novus' 97" festival. M.Kundera's "Jacques and his Master" (1998) production at the Moscow theatre "Satirikon" was awarded the Stanislavsky prize for the best spring season performance in Moscow. Rīga Russian Drama theatre - Tom Stoppard's "Artists" (1998), Moscow Mayakovsky Theatre - E. Smith's "Mysterious variations" (1999).
The performance has been intentionally built on stylistically different acting - psychological drama, buffonade style, thus emphasizing the conflict between plausibility and reality, between the interiority of feelings and their outer manifestations. The director continues her creative quest - trying to unite psychological characters, relationships with the dell'arte style. This performance has the intensity of action and emotions, the enthusiasm and gaiety of acting, element of histrionics and the permissibility of the character-mask. The sudden, tragic ending of the performance echoes the personal fate of the playwright A. de Musset - sufferings of love bring about his illness and the cessation of creative activities.
"Piškanderdula" (subtitled "Jozef"), presents
ARCHA theatre Prague, the Czech Republik
1h 50 min
Performers Veìra Ričarová František Ví.
František Vitek (1929) as child learned to sculpt figures for the curch,
atterwards he became involved in an amateur puppet theatre company. In
the mid the 50-s he became a professional puppeteer and stage designer
and builder. In 1959 he met Vera Ričarova (1936),who had just graduated
as an actress from the Puppetry academy.Vera and František worked togheter
in the East Bohemian town of Hradec Kralove, where they searched for new
themes, new approaches to puppetry and new visual expressions for puppetry.
In the 70 - s together with other puppeteers and musicians they became
the founders of a new puppet theatre "Drak", where they created several
performances "The Little Tiger", "Fairy Tale in a Suitcase", "Enšpigi"
and "Janošik". During the time, the puppetry was considered to be lesser
art form, created a new design that more in favour of the close focus
of the puppet. In 1981 they left "Drak", and since that time, they continue
to perform their own productions independently. They started looking for
a completely new personal language.Their current work is the result.
Performance "Piškanderdula" as they trademark has come to be a highlight in various festivals in Central Europa, Germany, Denmark, Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium and also at ICA in London. The most recent tour of the United States included the Flynn Theatre, the Bread and Puppet Theatre in Vermont, and the International Puppet Theatre Festival in New Yourk, where nine performances in La MaMa were completely sold out. They have also taught workshops in theatre academies, puppet and object schools in Germany and France .
The title of play is taken from children's graffiti founded on the wall of a house in the city of Hradec Krįlové. Performance isn't "theatre" in usual sense of the word. It is rather encounter with the greatest possibl variety of types of puppets and mechanisms mixed from the greatest variety of historical periods.
All the wooden puppets are intentionally naked, - without any sort of decoration. As soon as the puppets become alive, the audience starts observing two lives simultaneously - the life of the puppets and the life of the people, the performance creates the feeling of witnessing the marvelous.
The
Flight Across the Savannah in Mr. Mirror's Helicopter, The Art Theatre,
Riga
1 h 20 min.
Directed by Gatis Šmits, Regnārs Vaivars.
Performers Zane Vaļicka, Daina Tobija, Ivars Kalniņš, Olga Dreģe,
Regnārs Vaivars, Vasilijs Šeļepjonoks.
Gatis Šmits - Latvian Academy of Culture, theatre director (1996), one the founders of the "Artel of Unbearable Theatre". Productions: A.Levin "Rosemary's Child" (1998), New Rīga Theatre, "Olympic Year" (1997), Daile Theatre, W. Shakespeare "Richard III. The Last Winter of the York Family", Artel of Unbearable Theatre, (1996). "The most striking feature of this director - the creation of a very private, detached, bright world, filled with images," (Henrieta Švāne). For G. Šmits the overall image of the performance is of utmost importance, and his previous productions have offered to the audience unforgettable visual experiences.
Director Regnārs Vaivars (1973) Graduated from the Latvian Academy of Culture as an actor and director (1996), has played important roles - Shakespeare's Othello, Alyosha in "Brothers Karamazovs" by Dostoyevsky. Participated in international master classes, lectured at Reykjavik Arts Academy (Iceland) on O.Wilde's "Salome". Up till now the director has been creating performances " where the word is an impulse on the way to higher metaphysical experience". (Undīne Adamaite) He has also produced unorthodox performances in different styles: T. Ruzevich "White Wedding" (1996), L.Carol "Alice in Wonderland" (1997), multimedia opera "Rolstein on the Beach" (1997), G. Stefanovksy "Consulate" (1998), G. Genet "The Maids" (1998), "A Flight over Savannah in Mr. Mirror's Helicopter". based on the works of J. London (1998). His productions have participated in international festivals in Lithuania, Denmark, Sweden. With the unconventional production of O. Wilde's "Salome" (1998) at the New Riga Theatre in Regnārs has, in Latvian theatre circles aquired fame as a scandalous director.
The production participated in the Lithuanian New Drama Festival. Its theme - what does victory mean - in sports, career, intimate life. First of all it is a fascinating experiment with originally staged relationships between context and text. The dramatization consists of 6 episodes - events that might have happened to the heroes of the story. Three unrelated parallel stories are enacted. They reveal the psychological nuances of J. London's characters and inner motivation of their actions. The combination of episodes creates new contents, like the montage of film episodes. Secondly, the production treats experimentally the relationship with the audience, creating a very special reality that balances on the border between reality and game - two persons well-known to the Latvian audience, two winners of the Miss Latvia title, are at one and the same time preoccupied with personal and stage relationships. An actor and a professional boxing trainer perform the episode ofthe boxing training session. The principle of cinematic montage, strictly observed in this production and the fragmentation and illusion of newsreel imagestestifies to the postmodern artistic views of its authors.
Creative association (1996-1997) of three graduate students of theLatvian Academy of Culture - directors Viesturs Kairišs, Dž.Dž.Džilindžers, Gatis Šmits - with very pronounced artistic ambitions. They characterized themselves as " a creative association of mutually exclusive work of three people, who wish to create something utterly new, not following any traditions." During the existence of this association several very important performances were staged, mainly experimenting with the relationship between text and performance and with the imaginative use of the acting space. Performances: "Concerto grosso", "Molloy", after Beckett (director Dž.Dž.Džilindžers), Pushkin "Stone Visitor" (Director V.Kairišs), Shakespeare "The End of the York Family" (director G.Šmits)