March is theater month, and on International Theater Day, Cēsu Theater usually invites its audience to a musically entertaining program. This year it will be a retrospective, where the collective will look back on what they have done in the five years since Cēsi Theater resumed its activities after a creative break.
The performance “Each hour has its own beauty” will feature songs and short flashes of fragments from all the plays staged over the years, including performances and concerts. Starting with the first production “Mucenieks und Muceniece” to the latest performance – “Trinity sins”.
Director Edīte Siļkēna points out that inviting the audience to a meeting on International Theater Day is a wonderful tradition: “On this day, all over the world, those who are engaged in acting, including amateur acting, share what they do. We will show in a concentrated way what the Cēsis Theater does. We have not put aside any of the plays staged in these years, we can play them, and that is what is being done. Last year, all shows were performed at least once. There will be not only fragments of performances, but also moments from programs where the theater participated, which it created itself, for example, a performance of love poetry, which we prepared during the pandemic and showed to ourselves in Ruckas Park, because public events could not take place. Or the opening ceremony of Arno Jundze’s book about Eduard Weidenbaum “I will never die” in Kalači. These are moments that our viewers probably don’t even know about, haven’t been there, so this will be an opportunity to see the whole picture. I think it will be a nice reunion with the audience, stirring up emotions in them.”
Asked to look back on her time with the Cēsis Theater, the director says that these five years were very powerful, saturated, despite the fact that there was also a distant time in between. Seven plays have been staged, the actors have participated in many projects, and according to statistics, last year the collective met at least 130 times in rehearsals, performances, and other events in a larger or smaller composition. During the year, 40 performances were performed in Cēsis and in many places in Vidzeme.
The collective allows itself to the director’s challenges, no matter how unrealistic they may seem. As E. Siľkēna says with a smile: “Perhaps, behind their backs, they sometimes mumble why so much, why do we have to go again, but when we get together for a rehearsal, play a show in Cēsis or go on tour, it is forgotten and everyone is happy to be together.
I want each actor to have a role or duty that illuminates him, creates an attraction to the team. I’m glad that during this time the collective has almost not shrunk and everyone will be able to meet at the concert performance. Of course, there have been minor changes, there are objective reasons why someone is not in the team at the moment, but the vast majority have been together for all five years. Amateur art is the art of will and freedom, if a person wants to learn, fill his free time, it is his choice. I’m glad that we stay together, that we create joy not only when we’re on stage, but also in everyday events and emotions.”
It is surprising that all shows played in the Great Hall, Chamber Hall or Cinema Hall of the “Cēsis” concert hall are almost always completely sold out. The people of Cesis, who are pampered by professional art, also like to come to the performances of their amateur theater.
“I think this is an assessment of our work,” says the director. “I know that several viewers come to the performances again and again, because they understand that the show is a living organism, it is a little different every time. In my opinion, it is important that in Cēsis there is a very good balance between professional art and amateur art.”
People want to see the Cēsi Theater not only in their city, because the summer schedule is already filled, the summer will pass under the banner of “Sins of Three”, but before that an event is expected in April, the premiere – “Kissa”, which will be shown in the big hall of the New Palace. It will be the story of Catherine von Sievers.
The director reveals that the path to this show began a few years ago, when the theater was invited to participate in the Night of Legends, the theme of which was one of the Sievers family – Katrina von Sievers: “Very little is known about her, she was called the white sparrow of the family, because at the beginning of the last century Became a silent film actress in Germany. Her life story occupies only one A4 page, it is not even known when and where her life ended. The idea arose that we could offer cooperation to the Cēsis Museum, stage a show to be shown in an authentic place. To tell the story of Kiss von Sievers, which is her stage name. With the support of the Cēsu Cultural Center, we contacted the Latvian playwright Ines Tālmanis, whose plays are awarded, and the cooperation turned out to be very successful. She wrote a play for the Cēsu Theater about this historical person, about a short moment in her life. I like both the material of the play and the work with the actors, now it’s all up to the audience, how they will evaluate our performance. It will be a bit of a challenge for us because it will be a different playing field. We have planned five performances in April, and if there is interest, we will also perform this play next autumn, in winter.”
When asked if this will be something more serious, E. Siľkēna says that someone might have the impression that Cēsi Theater’s plays are so happy, but in fact every happy play has a little poignancy and seriousness: “You just have to notice it. Therefore, the task of the actors is not to talk about the serious matter in a heavy way, but to let the viewer think about it himself. Last year, the audience highly appreciated the show “Lāktur įtātāi or česnieku kanti”. It is also supposed to be easy, sung, but in several stories people cried. They were actually serious stories that we tried to present in a light way, making the audience feel, experience.”
“Lamp Burners” was a new challenge for the actors: to create the show themselves, to find the characters, to get into their lives, to feel their essence. After the show, the question was often heard, will there be a sequel?
The director finds that there are so many good dramatic, literary, documentary stories to work with that can be staged. Among them, the idea of a continuation of “Lightning the Lamps” has not been abandoned, trying to cover the entire Cēsis region, where there is no shortage of well-known, lesser-known, but special people.
