At that time, Rolands Upatnieks, an engineer and luge coach, created the USSR bobsleigh team in a completely empty place, in which 95 percent were Latvians. And within four years they became Olympic medalists.
The time of “perestroika” was ripe, the winds of revival were already blowing in Latvia, but the Soviet officials did not want such a homogeneous national team of athletes.
R. Vaivars once wrote on a piece of paper everything that Latvians could do to excel on the world stage.
“This story seemed most suitable for the theater because I was writing with the future of cinema in mind,”
he reveals.
All the actors are co-authors of the show, so the production process was easy for the director. “We were definitely a united team, but of course I was the usurper Upatnieks at times,” he admits.
The director emphasizes the courage of R. Upatnieks, the ability of the organizer to get him to be allowed to form a team from Latvians and in Latvia.
Unfortunately, Mārtiņš Kalitas, who played the main role, no longer had the same opportunity as his colleagues – to call the prototypes.
Got to know Rolandas Upatnieks, reading interviews, watching available video archives, talked with the athlete’s daughter, bobsledders and contemporaries.
“Everyone said something different about Roland.
These were very personal conversations, and that’s what interested me – to find where Roland has remained in this person and what he has changed.
Then I tried to understand how Upatnieks himself feels, what he thinks and does. He was the kind of old man who told Moscow that everything will happen in Latvia: we will produce bobsleigh sleds, the athletes will be Latvian and we will build a track for the Soviet Union team in Latvia. He was the locomotive that knocked everything out, that says a lot,” says the actor.
The creative group of the production also visited the Sigulda track and went bobsledding. It has helped a lot, admits M. Kalita.
“Before, I thought that riding the track was something very physical – holding that iron horse on the ice with a tense body. However, before letting us go, Zintis Ekmanis said: “The main thing is, don’t stress!”
What bob feels, you let a little through yourself.
The ride was at a tremendous speed, you enter as if in a teleportation time loop and you only feel the force of gravity, which pushes you to the floor.”
Sandis Pīsis plays a journalist in the show, but his character does not have a specific prototype.
“I am a sublimation of the journalism of that time, based on both clichés and real images. We stuck to the way the texts were created, to the manner of speech, to the way it was accepted to talk about the great achievements of the Soviets,” he notes.
The actor hadn’t delved so much into bobsleigh before, especially in the beginning. He thinks that it will be just as exciting for the audience to learn a lot about the history and personalities of bobsleigh.
“I’m sure this will be a gentlemen’s show, and they’ll bring their wives to the theater because they’ll find it interesting.
Not only factual material, but also human stories,” says S. Pēcis.
Latvian bobsleigh legend Z. Ekmanis had come to Liepāja to watch the rehearsal.
“At a time when we are being repressed as a sport, I will confess openly – with last year’s highest sports result in Latvia, we are not counted among the fifteen priority sports,” says the vice president of the Bobsleigh Federation.
“At such a moment, at least here, it is a pleasure that we are valued in some way, that we have our own group of fans. If the director considered this topic important, then we have already left something lasting.”
“Latviešu rakëtes” was created by R. Upatnieks together with mechanic Jānis Akolovas. The idea was to create a narrow sled with the least air resistance, then the engineers of the “VEF” factory did the rest.
“The invention was at the end of the invention.
For rockets the advantage was that the steering was consistent with the previous old bob. When the foreigners saw that these bobbies were driving, they immediately made them “from the ass”. But they didn’t solve the steering issue, so they threw it aside,” recalls Z. Ekmanis.
“If we had a little more knowledge, we should have already won that Olympiad…”
In the other roles – Kaspars Kārkliņš, Armands Kaušelis, Valts Skuja, Kārlis Artejevs, Artūrs Irbe, Kārlis Ārglis and Hugo Puriņš.
Set designer of the production Valters Kristbergs, costume designer Madara Botmane, lighting designer Mārtiņš Feldmanis and video artist Dainars Albužis.
Contribution of the media support fund from Latvian state budget funds. The portal liepajniekiem.lv is responsible for the prepared content.
2024-02-16 03:32:46
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