Performance “The New Bride” at the Liepaja Theater
Dramatizējuma authors – JJ Jillinger
Assistant Director and Choreographer – Linda Kalniņa
Scenographer – Mārtiņš Vilkārsis
Costume Designer – Marina Medvedeva
Composer – Andris Vilcāns
Video Artist – Artis Dzērve
Light Artist – Mārtiņš Feldmanis
Translated the novel from Italian Dace Meiere
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J. J. Gillinger started rehearsing for the “New Bride” last winter. The premiere took place on March 6, as planned, but the hall was empty because it was another arc. And here’s a recent show finally seen by the audience. Nine months later.
The Italian writer Alessandro Barico has written many novels, not one of them has become a bestseller, a film made after “Legend of the Pianist in 1900” (and a play staged at the Riga Russian Theater). “The New Bride” (“La Sposa giovane”) is one of the author’s latest works, written in 2015 and published in Latvian in 2019.
But now I will discover the story ahead of time, because I have a habit of reading the first source before going to the theater (unless, of course, I manage to get it). The new bride comes from Argentina to Italy, to a family with a Father, Mother, Son, Daughter and Uncle. Characters are also called that, just like Jung’s archetypes. The girl is 18 years old and she has to marry a Son, the engagement took place three years ago. Only the Son is not, he is on the Island, so in England, and when he arrives, it is unknown. But every morning he receives a telegram saying that everything is fine.
The family is very strange and lives by strict adherence to unwritten rules – here it is accepted to be afraid of the night, because in this family dies only at this time of day: breakfast rich and proud until the middle of the day, it is such a ritual, thanks to the new day; misfortune is not respected here, but books are not yet read here. Modesto, the house manager who has been serving in the house for 59 years, tells the New Bride these rules.
There is another character in this book – the narrator, his message with constant and completely unnecessary deviations from the main line, involving some episodic incomprehensible characters. Sometimes it is a third-person narration, but here it suddenly becomes clear that it is already the Daughter or the New Bride who is telling about herself. But then – come on! – The narrator re-grabs the reins. He also starts to talk about himself from time to time, and just as confusingly. But whatever is done, postmodern literature is characterized by fragmentation. However, this is not about the narrator, but about the author, that is, Alessandro Barico.
In short! The daughter teaches the New Bride to masturbate (this is her personal technique of “entering the night”), and at times it turns out that at the request of the dying grandmother, the Bride has given up her feminine nature so that men do not perceive the only girl in the family as a sexual object. It turns out later that it didn’t help either. The always asleep Uncle is not a relative of this family at all. The mother teaches the New Bride to seduce men and school a little in lesbian love. The son is missing and his whereabouts are unknown. The father has a weak heart. And he is not the Father of the Son. The Son is the child of the Father and the Mother. But they met in an expensive brothel. Wherever the New Bride goes, without waiting for the Son. And several years later the Son came and took what was planned. That’s how the whole story started in the brothel and ended there. Uff. Totally surrealism. Oh God, why did I read that?! …
It should be noted that the annotations for this book are quite tempting, especially those in English – “erotic resemblance to adults”, “bright and sensual novel”. Readers are puzzled and disappointed by the reviews.
Now – for the show, otherwise I have started a new group of literary critics here. I’ll try myself as a theater critic, maybe I’ll do better.
J. J. Gillinger has called it all an “unusual story in two parts” and has created a drama himself, and he has thrown out the narrator with all his annoyance. Admittedly, some of the necessary explanations for the action have disappeared, but in the end the confused message is unraveling.
The direction is also good, including in open scenes where erotica almost borders on pornography, but doesn’t cross the line. Although who can surprise you today? If only the saints.
Let’s go further. Great scenography by Mārtiņš Vilkārs. The construction above the stage is especially impressive – something like a huge bronze chandelier, which descends closer to the final, trapped in the cage of the New Bride. Very stylish Marina Medvedeva costumes.
And a little about the work of the actors. This is very good, no exaggeration. Madara Kalna, who started trying the role of the New Bride while still an acting student, is now a full-fledged actress. She showed very well the opening of her heroine’s oppressed sexuality. Inese Kučinska – great, as always. Both in the role of a mannered Mother who hovers like a cloud and in an episode with a dying grandmother. Egon Dombrovskis and his Modesto, on whom all this strange House rests, but the Family can fully rely on him – he also has his secrets. Edgar Pujat, who was seen by the audience for the third time in a row in a short time, and he is different in each of them. His Father is a stiff and ceremonial aristocrat who carefully follows the traditions of the Family. Kaspars Gods and his strange, always asleep Uncle, who is a bit out of this world. Ilze Trukšāne and her passionate daughter, who suffers from being crippled. I want to say about the other actors – “good, but little” in the sense that their roles are small.
What comes out to us in the dry residue? Very good production with well-played roles. And it’s like a weird feeling of annoyance? Maybe because I didn’t like the book?
Read the article in the original language Rus.lsm.lv.
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