llze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa in the Daile Theater production “All of them”.
Publicity photo (Mārčas Baltskars).
Ilze Kļaviņa, “Kultūrzīme”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”
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The production of Alistair McDowell’s play “Three poems” (“Three poems”, 2023) directed by Ines Michule at the Daile Theater is a stage work of an unusual form, which reveals the destinies of three women in different historical times.
The three appearances of the actress Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa in front of the audience are plot-unrelated, each of them brought to life with a different style.
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You have to strain your attention to follow the collage of the mono-performance, where the inner thoughts of the main character alternate with her dialogues with imaginary characters, fragments of poetry follow moments performed in the “stand-up” genre. The multi-level game as a whole is contained in the space of set designer and costume designer Ieva Kaulinas, which literally and figuratively revolves around the sole performer of all roles.
It should be noted that the production and the text material were created in a long process. The British writer McDowell came up with the idea of the play during the recent pandemic, when the special circumstances forced and allowed him to take a deeper look at what was happening in his house, at other times unnoticed trifles and nuances, and this has also left its mark in the text. It is definitely worth reading more about it in the excellently prepared theater program1. The published interview with the author reveals both the influence of the writer James Joyce and small personal nuances in the author’s sense of life, which are essential in this detailed dramaturgical work. The stage embodiment is equally sophisticated, example – the sound design of Gustav Smalkas Frančas unobtrusively comments on the first minutes of the performance with a few bars of classical music, followed by the tuneless scraping of the turntable.
“You have to know a lot to be able to put a little into the text,” the playwright describes the concentrated, content-rich, dense flow of words. The literary material consists of three unusual monologues, which, in the purposeful translation of Ieva Lešinska, serve as the basis for an almost two-hour long performance.
One of them is dedicated to a woman who documentedly lived in a house on a certain street in the city of Manchester, and the humility and modesty of her behavior is gradually revealed in the series of episodes of her life. The course of her life is domestic, reoccurring memories of her dead mother, bus rides, sandwiches at work, passion for books, isolation from co-workers. Trapped in a cage, where the woman crawls out voluntarily at the end of the story, she seems to be at her best. The documentary background serves as a kind of excuse for the heroine’s fear, the sound of air raid signals, the orders of the German army. Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa performs this monologue in a sensitive portrait, if only such an impersonal timid creature can be called a personality and worthy of a portrait.
In contrast to the first, the second character of the story, who enjoys the loneliness earned in old age with a television, a cat and a stain on the wall, the actress plays with comically emotional colors. Her character, as if on the phone, comments on the painstaking but unsuccessful procedure of removing the stain. The situation develops, the size of the stain increases, then it turns out that the noisy neighbor in the next room turns out to be the other her. However, the split personality does not faze the hero, not even when she begins to exist as two biological entities. The woman organically and without confusion turns into a wall, oriental floral motifs cover the wallpaper, and the same patterns are also in the actress’s outfit. The story ends when the wall of the house is demolished, and the dust from the wall falls into the cosmic universe.
The third story also deals with the theme of personal identity, showing the life cycle of one woman from birth to death. With the phrases of the text spoken by the character played by the actress, the most important events of her life happen at an accelerated pace. Surprisingly, and without diminishing in intensity throughout the episode, the character of the woman is visible, as if outlined with precise dots. With amazing accuracy of action and emotional openness in every moment of the game, Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa’s character runs through specific miniature scenes, turning from an unconscious baby into a child, then into a teenager, a young man in love, a mature woman, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. The moments of time captured in such zipped files move to the viewer’s perception, so that they can be opened and reflected on long after watching the mono performance.
Similar to McDowell’s portrayal of the character, the creative time of the actress herself is intense, adding three unnamed female roles from the show “All of Her” to the role of the pearl artist’s treasure chest. 2023 Daile Theater productions in which she participates – S. Rula’s “Euridike”, the concert performance “Poem for the Gambler”, T. Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt”, B. Brecht’s “Caucasian Chalk Circle”, Ausmas Kantāne’s voice recording in the LTV film “The Poet and Auķis” – all are bright and polished works in different facets, which allow the fulfillment of talent to shine brightly.
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Alistair McDowell, “All her”, production in the Small Hall of the Daile Theater
Director: Inese Mičule, translator Ieva Lešinska, scenographer and costume designer Ieva Kauliņa, lighting designer Reinis Zalte, sound design: Gustavs Smalkais Francis.
Role: Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa.
Next performances: February 21, March 8, 9.
1 At the same time, I am considering a practical idea, how would it be if those who do not collect show booklets and informational materials or for other reasons do not buy the small brochures, could familiarize themselves with their content on the digital screens of the Daile Theater.
2024-03-01 11:22:34
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