Baltic Theatre Festival 2014 and The annual Latvian professional theatre show

“Baltic Theatre festival 2014” , October 10. – 19.

SCHEDULE

Date Time and Performance Director, Theatre Venue duration

CHILDREN’S PROGRAM:

10.10 11:00 Gyula Urban Felikss Deičs, Valmiera Drama The Big hall of Valmiera 14:00 „All Mice Like Cheese” Theatre Drama Theatre http://vdt.lv/lv/izrade/visam_ 1h 40min pelem_garso_siers 14:00 Krista Burāne „A Winter House” Krista Burāne, Nomadi Valmiera Drama Theatre 17:00

1h 18:00 „What is Too Crazy, is Crazy" Dita Balčus, Dita Balčus’ Theatre Mākslas darbinieku nams, Vaļņu street 9, Old Riga 1h http://ditasbalcusteatris.lv/por tfolio/kas-par-traku-tas-par- traku/ 11.10. 11:00 Wilhelm Busch „Max and Moritz” Edgars Kaufelds, Latvian Puppet The Big Hall of Latvian Theatre Puppet Theatre 1h 30min http://www.lelluteatris.lv/lv/7 94-makss-un-morics

14:00 After Jaunsudrabiņš Inga Tropa, Dirty Deal Teatro Dirty Deal Teatro „The White Book” 1h 40min 18:00 Rasa Bugavičute Elmārs Seņkovs, Latvian National The Big Hall of Latvian „Little Red Ridinghood and the Theatre National Theatre 1h 30min) Wolf” http://www.teatris.lv/lv/izrade s/liela-zale/sarkangavite-un- vilks 12.10. 12:00 Māra Ķimele, New Riga Theatre New Riga Theatre „Indian stories (Nyarama)” http://www.jrt.lv/nijaramas- 1h pasakas 15:00 Inguna Bauere Juris Jonelis, Latvian Academy of Latvian Academy of Culture „The Treasures of Ancestors” Culture, 3. dramatic course. Theatre home - Zirgu pasts, Dzirnavu 46 18:00 Ligita Lukstraupe „re: Awakening” Dita Balčus, Dita Balčus’ Theatre Mākslas darbinieku nams, Vaļņu street 9, Old Riga 1h 40min

THE ANNUAL LATVIAN PROFESSIONAL THEATRE SHOW:

13.10. 13:00 „What is Too Crazy, is Crazy" Dita Balčus, Dita Balčus’ Theatre Mākslas darbinieku nams, 1h We offer you our own created journey Vaļņu street 9, Old Riga into our exceptional poet Ojārs http://ditasbalcusteatris.lv/por Vācietis’(1933-1983) fantasy and into tfolio/kas-par-traku-tas-par- the characters of his poetic world, traku/ which will magically come to life before your eyes.The show is intended for children of all ages, their parents, poem lovers, and also for those who still want to fall in love with poetry. 17:00 Andrei Ivanov „She is Everything” Georgijs Surkovs, Daugavpils The Small hall of Daile’s (A Play for Teenagers and their Grown- Theatre Theatre 1h 20min up Parents) After her husband’s death, http://daugavpilsteatris.lv/izra the wife loses contact with her teenage des_izversts.php?show=47 son. The son hates his mother and dreams about her death, but, in turn, the mother blames her son for all the sins of the world; therefore, every try to improve the relationship ends with new attacks. Finally, Mother comes up with a solution: she decides to get to know her son in a social setting and shows up disguised as a teenager. 19:00 „Anatomy of Dance” „How Close?” Choreographer: Elīna Breice, Gertrude’s street Theatre 50 min The modern dance performance How Gertrude’s street Theatre http://git.lv/?page_id=4750 Close? is a medium for rememberances that mirrors two people’s togetherness, when time has become enduringly long, but the place is permanent. 20:00 „The Duncans—Deviants or The Anatomy of Dance and Inta Ģertrūde’s street Theatre Prophets?” This dance performance is Balode an exploration into the personalities of the American artists and dancers, Isadora (1877-1927) and her brother Raymond Duncan (1874-1966).

14.10. 18:30 Per Olov Enquist Mārtiņš Eihe, Valmiera Drama Valmiera Drama Theatre „In the Hour of the Lynx” Theatre http://vdt.lv/lv/izrade/lusa_stu 1h 30min nda

19:00 Mikhail Kuzmin Vladislavs Nastavševs, New Riga The Big hall of New Riga "Travellers by Sea and Land" Theatre Theatre 3h 10min http://www.jrt.lv/peldosie- celojosie 15.10. 18:30 Roland Topor Ģirts Ēcis, LMT Mansards – The Small „Winter Under the Table” Valmiera Drama Theatre hall of Valmiera Drama 1h 40min Theatre http://vdt.lv/lv/izrade/ziema_z em_galda

18:30 Regnārs Vaivars „The Titanic” The Regnārs Vaivars, Latvian „O- karte” - The New hall of musical opens an ideal, charming, and National Theatre 2h 10min erotically exciting world, where no http://www.teatris.lv/lv/izrade depressing relationships exist; in other s/jauna-zale/titaniks words, a sexual world appears. Seeing the show, the average adult might be overcome by the feeling that in his future life also everything will be wonderful.”

18:30 Rasa Bugavičute by Jānis Ezeriņš Elmārs Seņkovs, Latvian National The Actors’ hall of Latvian „Ezeriņš” How to summarize a man’s Theatre National Theatre 2h 15min destiny in several minutes, when in life http://www.teatris.lv/lv/izrade decisive events happen in minutes of s/aktieru-zale/ezerins imprecise length, hours, and days? To experience in a concentrated time span an incredible meeting, impossible love, unusual characters, and unexpected death, while remaining sober is a gift only art can give. Seven creative actors of the National Theater present for us such a gift in the packaging of seven jointly chosen novels. 19:00 Mikhail Kuzmin Vladislavs Nastavševs, New Riga The Big hall of New Riga "Travellers by Sea and Land" Theatre Theatre 3h 10min http://www.jrt.lv/peldosie- celojosie 16.10. 19:00 Maxim Gorky „Summerfolk” Elmārs Seņkovs, Riga Russian The Big hall of Theatre 2h 45min http://www.trd.lv/lv/izrades/i zrades/vasarnieki/ 19:00 Agnese Rutkēviča „Dukši” „The story Gatis Šmits, New Riga Theatre The Museum Hall of The is about somewhat tired people, New Riga Theatre 2h 20min loneliness, purpose in life, and love. (Talsu street 1) Perhaps, at present, humanity is living http://www.jrt.lv/duksi through a century of estrangement and ennui, when those values that once were important in today’s society are no more relevant. As once wrote Maurice Maeterlinck , „the time will come, and it is not far away, when souls will understand each other without the body’s mediation.” Maeterlinck himself will not know that he predicted the 21st century.” 19:00 Bertholt Brecht Dž.Dž.Džilindžers, Liepāja Liepāja Theatre 2h 10min „Bloody Red Moon (Drums in the Theatre http://liepajasteatris.lv/sasodit Night)” ais-sarkanais-meness/

BALTIC THEATRE FESTIVAL Information about the Festival performances please see below!

LITHUANIA:

17.10. 17:30 THE OPENING OF THE Riga Kongress Centre FESTIVAL 18:00 Operomanija The New Hall of Riga Kongress Centre 1h Vaiva Grainytė „Have a Good Day”

20:30 Rolandas Kazlas, Vilnius Puppet Palace of Culture 2h Theatre Ziemeļblāzma Kristijonas Donelaitis „Unlike the Fashion of This World” (One-act performance for adults)

ESTONIA:

18.10. 13:00 Regnārs Vaivars, Rihards Jakovels Regnārs Vaivars, Valmiera Drama Latvian Academy of Culture [email protected] (A pleasant conversation Theatre Theatre home - Zirgu pasts, 1h 10min about basketball and life) When giving Dzirnavu 46 yourself a hundred per cent to what is closest to your heart, is anything left for other things in your life? 15:00 „Heavy metal” The play is based on Andrejs Jarovojs, Gertrude’s Gertrude’s street Theatre real events that took place on May 1, street Theatre 1h 30min 2009, at Bari Alai observation post in Afghanistan, where, on that day, two soldiers from lost their lives. They were Voldemārs Anševics and Andrejs Merkuševs. Since the information of what happened on that day continues to be classified, the creative theater troup’s version about those events and the personnel are imaginary. 15:00 Lauri Lagle , NO99 The New Hall of Riga 1h 40min Kongress Centre NO99, „Wednesday” 17:00 Maria Petersone, Project theatre The Museum Hall of The 3h 30min New Riga Theatre Andri Luup, „Dove” (Talsu street 1) 21:00 Lauri Lagle , NO99 The New Hall of Riga 1h 40min Kongress Centre NO99, „Wednesday”

LATVIA:

19.10. 11:00 Conference. Latvian Academy of Culture Open discussion based on Theatre home - Zirgu pasts, performances seen for theatre critics, Dzirnavu 46 journalists and theatre professionals. 13:00 Rūdolfs Blaumanis „Raudupiete” Elmārs Seņkovs, Valmiera Drama The Big Hall of Valmiera 1h 40min Raudupiete is among the first works in Theatre Drama Theatre Latvian literature, where a person’s inner nature is revealed. Perhaps it is a story about the secret part in all of us that fights for love and sympathy so blindly that it kills itself. We know that passion, repressed truth, and unfulfilled desire can have destructive consequences. 14:30 and Olga Žitluhina „Outside” („Moved by Olga Žitluhina’s dance Company Latvian Academy of Culture 18:00 Brand”) Dance performance „Outside” Theatre home - Zirgu pasts, 1h 20min studies the modern man’s ability to go Dzirnavu 46 beyond the usual comfort zone in the name of a higher purpose. In the process of generating ideas as the literary source of the performance was taken Henrik Ibsen’s “Brand” – a masterpiece of classic drama. 16:00 Lauris Gundars, Theatre TT Club „Depo”, Old Riga 1h 15min Rūdolfs Mings „The Ghosts of Mings” 19:00 Alvis Hermanis, New Riga The Big hall of New Riga "Onegin. Commentaries" Theatre Theatre 2h 30min THE CLOSING OF THE FESTIVAL New Riga Theatre 20.10 19:00 GUEST SHOW – Luk Perceval, Producer: The Big Hall of Latvian 2h William Shakespeare „Macbeth” Festival BALTIC HOUSE National Theatre http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYA KHaRbnkk

Vilnius Theatre „Lėlė” Arklių Str. 5, Lietuva

Fantasy about the poet Kristijonas Donelaitis One-act performance for adults UNLIKE THE FASHION OF THIS WORLD

Dramatization author and director: Rolandas KAZLAS Artist: Neringa KERŠULYTĖ

Cast: Rolandas KAZLAS, Sigita MIKALAUSKAITĖ, Deivis SARAPINAS Premiere: 18 October 2013 Duration: 2 hours

Assistant Director – Olga POCEVIČIŪTĖ Lighting: Julius STANKEVIČIUS Sound: Vitaras AŠKELAVIČIUS Costumes: Virginija PAJARSKIENĖ, Lukas JUODIS Scenery, requisites: Liljana JANAVIČIENĖ, Simona LUKOŠINĖ, Martynas LUKOŠUS, Ligita SKUKAUSKAITĖ

“Unlike the fashion of this world” is not just the name of the play, but also the inscription about the famous Lithuanian poet Kristijonas Donelaitis, made by Precentor K. V. Šulcas: “It was [...] an honest man. Unlike the fashion of this world…” (1977, p. 573).

Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-1780) was one of the most original writers of the Enlightenment, a classic of Lithuanian literature. There is very much written about K. Donelaitis; his character and personality have been embodied in a number of works of art (fine art, music, theatre). For the reason of celebrating the 300th anniversary of the beginner of Lithuanian fiction and the author of the famous poem “The Seasons” and as the year of 2014 has been announced as the Year of Kristijonas Donelaitis, Vilnius Theatre “Lėlė” has prepared a performance “Unlike the fashion of this world”. The author of the play is one of the most talented and best-known contemporary Lithuanian theatre actors Roland Kazlas.

“While deepening into the life and works of Kristijonas Donelaitis, wonder has born... What a powerful language! What a beautiful poetry! What a profound thought! What a vigorous man, decent Lithuanian and awesome poet and thinker... No images of Donelaitis have remained, however, his sparse works have miraculously survived, and this is the best picture and testimony of the poet.

When I read the works by Kristijonas Donelaitis, I just feel that the word has not been written, but engraved in the wrinkles over the years. This word was brought from the fields, soaked in sweat, washed by rain; it smells of sausages, bacon, herbs, it was heard from a nightingale and owl... Donelaitis was the man who managed to turn his own labour and troubles into poetry. “The Seasons” is the hardships of life that have become the poetry. After all, the poet, when writing, did not think about the glory of a classic, popularity r print runs, but wrote during a rare minute of respite. Then he went back again, ran, fell, rose, built schools, churches, worked the land, made instruments. In the wrestling with time and endless troubles, Donelaitis managed to notice miracles.

Donelaitis, being a forward-looking man, had foreseen the spread of various horrors. It happened. “The Seasons” and the ecclesiastical records contain such things that are nowadays seen in the news, various of entertainment and criminal shows. The poet also warned of the negative impact of foreign on the Lithuanians. True, he did not hesitate to criticize his own people. When criticizing, he acted like a blacksmith: heated and hammered, and then plunged into cold water.

In the dramatization, I have tried to go beyond the poem “The Seasons”. I used only very small fragments of this piece of work and some things from the letters, poems, the poet’s inscriptions in the church books and what he wrote to himself. All the lyrics and words of the play belong to Donelaitis – I have added not a thing of my own. I tried to focus on the very poet and how his real life intertwined with his work, how he turned the prose of life into poetry.”

Rolandas Kazlas

HAVE A GOOD DAY! Work by Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė, Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė

Opera for 10 cashiers, supermarket sounds and piano

Librettist Vaiva Grainytė Composer and music director Lina Lapelytė Director and set designer Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė Costume designer Daiva Samajauskaitė Lighting designer Eugenijus Sabaliauskas Producer OPEROMANIJA

Cashiers: Lina Dambrauskaitė, Liucina Blaževič, Vida Valuckienė, Veronika Čičinskaitė- Golovanova, Lina Valionienė, Rima Šovienė, Milda Zapolskaitė, Rita Račiūnienė, Svetlana Bagdonaitė, Kristina Svolkinaitė Security Guard: Kęstutis Pavalkis (piano) Lina Lapelytė (live electronics)

www.haveagoodday.me

The opera focuses on the inner lives of cashiers in a shopping centre: showing what lies behind their mechanical “Good afternoon!“, “Thank you!“, “Have a good day!”, and fake smiles. Faceless, robot-like shop workers found in everyday life are transformed into unique and lively characters. Their secret thoughts and biographies are turned into short, personal dramas. The characters of different sales clerks, embodying universal archetypes, convey the predominant social landscape. The libretto is a revealing mosaic of spoken, literary language and documentary.

The atmosphere of the supermarket is established through the glimmering and buzzing installation of daylight lamps and environmental sounds, connecting the audience to the stage and the 10 cashiers. The set itself is very minimalistic. Real goods – the recognizable décor of a shopping center – exist only in acoustic and verbal form.

The monotonous beep of each item being scanned is a key sound through the whole opera. It gets louder and quieter, but it is always present. Songs that accompany the beeping are as monotonous as the process of shopping and selling. Instead of becoming the main point of the opera, music serves the thoughts of the cashiers – it facilitates their voice.

To avoid any moral or condemnatory suggestion, a critical attitude towards capitalism is expressed through humor, paradox, irony and poetry. The mosaic of different destinies is transformed into one poem suggesting the pleasure of consumption.

In 2013 “Have a Good Day!” was selected by an International Theatre Institute (ITI) jury for presentation at final “Music Theatre NOW” competition (Biennial for Performing Arts, Jönköping, Sweden), where the work was awarded Globe Teana-Theatre Observation prize. Opera was presented in various music, theatre and opera festivals in Lithuania and abroad (Shanghai International Contemporary Theatre Festival ACT, Contemporary Music Theatre and Opera Festival PROTOTYPE in New York, Theatre festival “Golden Mask” in Moscow). Opera was also broadcasted on Lithuanian National Radio and BBC Radio 3.

Clever, charming and quietly subversive. Whatever critique of capitalist entrapment and consumerist obsession might be implied is conveyed with subtlety and wit. Steve Smith, The New York Times

It’s a tour de force of deadpan comedy....comes wrapped in a score of incantatory, almost liturgical serenity. Justin Davidson, New York Magazine

...minimalist textures that evoke the swirl of everyday life – banality transformed into art. The opera is witty and poignant. Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal

A tightly constructed, multi-layered creation, its humor pierced by melancholy. Alex Ross, The New Yorker

It's like a mini masterpiece. It's just nothing to take away, nothing to add – it's very solid, very simple and very real. Jonas Mekas, www.jonasmekas.com

This performance has to be seen more than once! Vaidas Jauniškis, Menų Faktūra

NO99 WEDNESDAY

It’s six o’clock. The workday has ended, the lectures are over. I’m a little tired. Why should I go to the theatre? Because Lauri Lagle has directed two plays thus far at NO99 Theatre. (Untitled) focused on one person’s attempts to find lost love in the maze of social lies in order to then share it with everyone. The Great Devouring is a quartet play where four people proceed to fill their bellies and their yearnings to do something total. Wednesday is Lagle’s newest stage production, where the focus is no longer on the heroes of our everyday lives, daredevils who perform superhuman acts. Instead it is on the ordinary person in the middle of his Wednesday. But why should anyone just tell a story about “ordinariness”? That is done quite often but Lagle is nevertheless a director with a different touch. He seeks the exalted in the banal, hope in worries, and joy in the routine. By now he has been in a room with four women for almost two months and together with them he has examined what it is that turns an ordinary Wednesday into Wednesday. What happens? Why doesn’t anything ever happen? What comes to mind? What would you like to do? What would you like to eat, to drink, who would you like to talk to? Is there anyone to talk to at all? And above all: what rhythm does the heart beat in when all those questions are being asked? Wednesday is a cheerful play. It is extremely important. It is necessary to find the right words so as not to get snotty when talking about the everyday, not to get stuck in that ordinariness, but rather to find the opportunities in precisely what is boring and routine for seeing your own life as an inexhaustible well of thirst for life. All that is why it is a good idea to come to the theatre by seven o’clock. A single minute for Lauri Lagle can last for an entire hour. An eighty-minute play can pass in the twinkling of an eye. The only thing that is really ours is the time of our life. In Lagle’s theatre, we jointly experience how that proceeds. Stefan Schmidtke Director and Art Director: Lauri Lagle Music Design: Mihkel Tomberg, troupe, Hendrik Kaljujärv Costume Designer: Ene-Liis Semper Light Designer: Siim Reispass

Cast: Eva Klemets, , Kaie Mihkelson () and Mari Abel ().

Premiere on November 2 2013 at Theatre NO99

DOVE A catastrophe in three acts

Author Andri Luup Director Maria Peterson Costumes Maarja Naan Designer Andri Luup Sound design Tõnis Leemets Lighting design Helvin Kaljula

Cast: Indrek Sammul (Estonian Drama Theatre), Aleksander Eelmaa ( City Theatre), Liina Olmaru, Nero Urke, Aarne Soro (Ugala), Mare Peterson, Kaspar Velberg (Tallinn City Theatre), Elisabeth Peterson, Garmen Tabor, Ken Rüütel

Production: Arhipelaag

The premiere was held in the cafe Sinilind in Tallinn Kinomaja on 29 November 2013.

“Dove” is a comedy about a theatre called Hermes which is fighting for its place under the sun. Where to find an audience, what to say to them and which genre to choose? These are the questions which haunt everyone. Hermes does not have a niche of its own and something has to be done about it in order to regain its former glory and bring people back into the theatre. Maybe they should do something truly radical or invent something new and unprecedented? The head of the theatre has a solution to their problem but all the actors seem somehow unhinged. The new director is expected to come up with a way out – he takes the bull by his horns and puts old habits and great stars to test. To do something against your will or not to do it at all, that is the question. And what to do with both personal and general ideals?

The world premiere of “Dove”, directed by Sean Daniels (New York Geva Theatre) took place in the United States, at Louisiana Swine Palace theatre on 15 November 2013.

“”Dove” is one the of the funniest but at the same time also one of the most realistic plays about the life in theatre I have ever read.” (Sean Daniels, director)

Rūdolfs Mings

MINGA RĒGI/THE GHOSTS OF MINGS

“The Ghosts of Mings” is a teen detective story – a story about Latvia in 2013. Nine small-town high-schoolers organize their weekly all-night party where they consume large amounts of alcohol. When Inārs, the only sober person in the group, accidentally looks at the leader Rinalds in the wrong way, a fight breaks out – as it usually does on such occasions. The outcome, however, is unexpectedly tragic – Rinalds gets carried away and kills Inārs. True, it takes everybody until the following morning to notice Inārs lying motionless in the middle of the yard outside the house. Rinalds says he does not remember what happened….

Rūdolfs Mings - the author of the play, wrote it when he was 16. It captures the worldview of the younger generation, which mainly consists of their assumptions of the various aspects of life, and employs a precisely imitated vocabulary saturated with profanities in every possible language.

Directed by Lauris Gundars and starring Laura Siliņa or Ance Muižniece, Jurģis Spulenieks and Kristaps Ķeselis (throughout the performance the actors play a total of 11 characters). “The Ghosts of Mings” had got a prize as The Performance Of The Season 2012/2013 for Young Audience in Latvia theatres.

Produced by Anna Putniņa, “Teātris TT”; [email protected]

ONEGIN. COMMENTARIES

The performance is based on the verse novel YEVGENY ONEGIN by Alexander Pushkin.

For those who have not read Pushkin’s Yevgeny Onegin, this story might seem like an exalted unhappy love story – an opinion made mainly by the famous Tchaikovsky opera. For the writer’s contemporaries, however, this book became a detailed testimony of the era, describing the Russian society in the first half of the 19th century. The performance focuses not only on Pushkin’s story itself but also on the historical context that explains the novel. The texts written by Pushkin stand along with the commentaries of different authors but mainly those by the legendary semiotic Yuri Lotman. Lotman considered that reading a historical text requires the complete knowledge of the everyday residential rituals’ archeology that, for the contemporary reader, remains hidden behind the writer’s words.

The Pushkin verse is recited in Russian.

CAST Actors – Iveta Pole, Sandra Kļaviņa, Vilis Daudziņš, Kaspars Znotiņš, Ivars Krasts, Andris Keišs Director – Alvis Hermanis Designer – Andris Freibergs

Opening – April 5, 2012, The New Riga Theatre