Liepāja theater actors in the performance “Latvian Missiles”. From left: Valts Skuja, Kārlis Ārglis, Artūrs Irbe, Mārtiņš Kalita (back), Kārlis Artejevs (2nd row), Hugo Puriņš.
Publicity photo (Justine Grinberga).
Author: Ilze Kļaviņa, “Kultūrzīme”, AS “Latvijas Mediji”
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Director Regnārs Vaivars fires a launch rocket for a good dose of patriotism and does it in a harsh romantic style.
Liepāja theater’s production “Latviešu raķetes” ranks among the favorite Latvian films and shows, which in a beautiful and intense way run through the theme “athletes’ victory and celebration of the common pride of the nation – Latvians can!”. Bobsled history page with incredibly high achievements in the 20th century. 80s-90s years potentially include directorial opportunities to tell a legendary story. Perhaps the performance of another director, such as Valters Silas, would take place at the foot of the Sigulda bobsled track, making the audience feel the “drive” of speed, just as likely, J. J. Gillinger would deal with the action in the dressing rooms about hidden discoveries in the lockers of personal belongings, and it is half possible that Laura Groza would look in there from the positions of women who have sacrificed their lives for the stability of the medalist family.
OTHERS ARE CURRENTLY READING
Director Regnārs Vaivars, together with his assistant Mārtiņas Kalitas, fires the starting rocket for a good dose of patriotism and does it in a harsh romantic style in his own way – manly, directly and without exaggeration. The joint work of an ensemble of nine male actors is comparable to a joint flight from a mountain in the thrill of weightlessness, when maneuvering is possible only by fighting against the force of gravity and the allocated time.
The speed is dizzying and “rips off the skin”, and “Latvijas rakëtes” is and is not a documentary story about the coach and his team at the same time. Outwardly laconic expression, only a few colors (the vision of costume designer Madaras Botmanes – red, white, black), black and white video footage (video artist Dainars Albužis) shines on the wide open stage mouth, which invites you to look deeply into the documentary materials of sports life.
Scenographer Walter Kristberg builds the space as a constructively disassembled and assembled playground, which consists of actors’ movable benches, which transform into a sliding sledge, a mountain track, a press conference room, a telephone booth, etc. c. Artist Mārtiņš Feldmanis helps the atmosphere to breathe with the light score, from the intimacy of the monologue to the vastness of the stadium.
Overview and portrait
Based on the text, the director uses interviews from the athletes’ memories and in a sense restores the excitement and work of the luge coach Rolandas Upatnieks, who created the USSR national team in a completely empty place and whose designed sledges were called “Latvian rockets” all over the world.
Sports history facts and documentary events, such as the death of Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, are organically intertwined in the stage performance with the atmosphere of training and competition. The colorful slang of the Soviet era and an amalgamation of household customs – five to the militia as a bribe for a wrongly parked car, vodka as contraband on foreign trips, etc. – draws the viewer into what is happening.
Short micro-stories of actors about documentary characters are significantly concentrated in the intense action of the interludes, the appearances in the foreground of the stage are similar to moments of confession. “Pelnu chupiņa” – this is how Mēmais (in the role of Hugo Puriņš) describes his burnout during sports training, who concludes: “It was only after ten years that I realized that I am not a person, I am only a bobsledder. Maybe I should have finished sooner.” Essentially, almost all roles are simplified to nicknames, types of psychological behavior of the acting person.
Actor Kaspars Kārkliņš acts in the role of Resnā as a trusted leader of Sancho Pans, this time coach Upatnieks, while actor Armands Kaušelis plays the second coach Grigorjeva, actor Kārlis Artejevs – the Russian, Valts Skuja takes on the role of Krustneš, Artūrs Irbe plays Tumbiņa and Kārlis Ārglis – Houdini. Sandis Pīsis plays a significant role, showing the duplicitous sports commentator careerist Mairi – the mouthpiece of the right opinion. The artificial rhetoric “no nut is too hard for a Soviet man’s teeth” or “ours are making big strides towards new medals” contrasts and highlights the sense of truth in the athletes’ persevering and physically demanding life.
The brilliance and devastation of speed
Mārtiņš Kalita – Rolands Upatnieks – convincingly creates a sense of presence in the role, bringing to life a paradoxical, incomprehensible iron discipline towards himself and others that borders on fanaticism.
The image shows a desire to break out of the imprisonment of the Soviet land and the ideology of the land of false happiness, which, as is known, stagnated in society as a whole. Sweating under the pizhik, Upatnieks-Kalita again and again fills his and his partners’ activities with charging energy. And yet, in the almost perfect performance of the role, the episode of the death of the main character is not recorded, which unfortunately hits the wall of melodramatism in the flow of the show and reaches the border of tastelessness. The theme of the son and the heir remains unresolved according to its content and the scale of the “documentary epic” genre.
With the broad revival and thematic polyphony of “Latvijas raħetes”, Regnārs Vaivars brings to mind the legendary Daile Theater stage version of the opera “Rolstein on the Beach” (1997; authors philosopher Kaspars Rolšteins and multimedia artist Hardijs Lediņš), where the content intertwines rock, folklore, folklore, ecological problems, euthanasia, international terrorism, extinction of the Libyan people. It’s missing quite a bit.
2024-03-12 20:08:36
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