His premiere tonight is the title role in the Daile Theater’s most ambitious Rothkho performance of the season, inspired by the works of the world-famous American artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970), staged by one of the most challenging young Polish directors in the world of European theater who boldly combines theatrical art, video and music in his performances.
“Lukash Tvarkowski is not so easy to get to, we talked for more than two years until we succeeded,” reveals the director of Daile Theater Juris Žagars. He thinks that in a couple of years this will not be possible, because the talented director will be in demand in the big European theaters. “But today he is ours and we are very happy about it.”
The most complicated, the most expensive, the most ambitious
“This is the largest, the most complex, the most expensive, the most ambitious, and also the most controversial and risky art project in Daile in the last two years. It is made up of an international artistic team and involves our best, ”says Juris Žagars, director of the Daile Theater, listing: director Lukash Tvarkovsky, playwright Anka Herbuta, choreographer Pavel Sakovich, video artist Jakub Lech and composer Lubomir Gelak from Poland, set designer Fabien Lede is French, costume designer Svenja Gasen is from Germany, lighting designer Eugenijus Sabaļauskas is Lithuanian.
Most of the actors are from Daile Theater (Juris Bartkevičs, Artūrs Skrastiņš, Vita Vārpiņa, Rēzija Kalniņa, Kaspars Dumburs, Ērika Eglija-Grāvele, Mārtiņš Upenieks and Toms Veličko), but two Polish actors (Andrejs Jakubinauk and Kata JK Opole Theater (Jan Konchanowski theater) in Poland, as well as two non-professional Chinese actors (Jan Juan and Xiaochen Wang) from Riga.
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“Our actors have an interesting experience working in a team with Polish actors and local Chinese non-professional actors who are amazingly enthusiastic, extremely precise and disciplined. They work with a huge sense of responsibility and with very modest demands for material compensation, ”says Juris Žagars, emphasizing that it is a very, very good experience for everyone. “The team is extremely specific, and at the beginning the work process was quite complicated. Although we all live in Europe, it was not easy for us to understand, because we each have our own habits and working methods, but I have to say that it is this time that balances everything in some way – all the details and disagreements that used to seem extremely important are now gone. , and we are able to focus only on the premiere, »is satisfied Juris Žagars. According to him, this work reflects to some extent what is happening in Europe today – it has united in a few days and found a common language on issues that were not possible before.
Unprecedented possibilities and scenic illusions
The “Rotkho” stage space created by the artist and scenographer Fabiene Lede is a technological challenge of unprecedented scale in Latvian theater. The scenography of the show experiments with video and light, revealing the interaction between the mystery of physical art and virtual art, a copy of duplicate art. The stage solution consists of five moving but closed buildings, and viewers will watch what is happening there in seven live projections, four of which will be widescreen monitors. Six cameras will operate simultaneously, three of which will be equipped with wireless technology and will be controlled by the actors themselves.
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Two professional cinematographers and a live television director are involved in the production. Their interaction will be ensured through a live video editing console. Sound, light and video consoles will be synchronized with each other to provide unseen possibilities and sudden stage illusions.
“This is the most technologically complex show we have ever had in our theater, so we are especially grateful that we have established cooperation with LMT, which have become the innovation partners of the show. The budget for the show is not small, and it would not be possible for us to do it without other supporters – the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Instytut Adama Mickiewicza) and the JK Opole Theater. with such extensive cooperation, which continues to show that we are all Europeans, we have common values and we can work and create together. The performance will be in the repertoire of both the Daile Theater and the Polish Theater – with the same actors and artistic and technical composition.
Art merges with the market
“Rothko – the artist’s person and his artwork – is the prism through which to discover 21st century intangible capitalism. The value of things is revealed in the definitions of capitalism itself – they distinguish the true from the “fake”, the authentic from the counterfeit and the original from the imitation. Now being a business success is the most exciting thing in the arts, Andy Warhol once said, “says Lukash Tvarkowski, the director of the new production.
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“Rothko’s art and his biography are the starting point – their projection in the theater allows us to see and question assumptions: a person can become a commodity, art merges with the market, spirituality is preached according to the laws of capitalism and vice versa,” says the director. He continues: “One of the most expensive works of art in the world – a painting by Mark Rothko.” 6. (Purple, green and red) »- sold for 140 million euros. Whenever the news of new art price records shakes the world, the question also arises: what determines the value of this work in the art market? Nowadays, this question is becoming more and more difficult to answer, because the boundaries between works of art, their copies, the reputation of the artist and the technological development of the art market are becoming increasingly blurred ”.
Lukash Tvarkowski is creating a show that, among other things, tries to explore what the new trend really means – creating works of art in a digital environment and providing them with blocking technology. What is the significance of the authenticity of the artist’s work, and the most important question is: is the direct experience of theatrical art something that is shielded from such market principles? Fake and original are the central theme of the show’s story, as well as their paradoxical metastases in the virtual environment.
To confuse the viewer
The title of the show “Rotkho” is deliberately designed to confuse the audience, because in English it would be “Rothko”. On the one hand, Rothkho is a distortion of the famous artist’s surname, similar to how famous brands are replaced by counterfeits such as Adibas or Dolce Banana. On the other hand, the title of the show illustrates Grem Rowlinson’s hypothesis that regardless of the order of the letters, as long as the first and last letters of the word remain in place, we can understand the written text. Among other things, the show talks about what the new trend of creating works of art in the digital environment really means and what the significance of the artist’s work is.
In a conversation with “The Independent”, Rothkho’s actor Juris Bartkevičs reveals that in the process of rehearsing the show, he has to think about how his life-long knowledge of Mark Rothko and his intuition about the views, opinions and reactions of this “giant artist” for “clean” and for art to be purchased, to incorporate and harmonize with the requirements, as seen by the director of the new production. “Like what I feel, compared to this artist, I get together humanly. Because no matter how different I am from him, I have to find the motives for how he would act in specific situations. One of the main facts of the show is that he forgoes a huge royalty and takes back his paintings from the supernaturally expensive restaurant Four Seasons, on the grounds that people who can afford to pay for food did not even raise his eyes to his art. They will never understand it, they will never “digest” it a moment before the premiere, says Juris Bartkevičs.
He has read a lot about Rothko, and has also seen the artist’s work in museums, both in America and at the Tate Gallery in London. “I haven’t been to the Houston Chapel in Texas, where his” black “end of life is seen,” says the actor, adding that in the process of making the new production he tried to filter the artist’s motivation as much as possible, trying to understand how it’s all accumulated. “And what happens to a person who has such a difficult life path …? Criticism has also given Mark Rothko many harsh words, but he had his own iron belief – about the mission sent to him “from above”. And he did not bend, he went his way, but to suicide… »
Emotions are more important than facts
Juris Bartkevičs emphasizes that Rothko is not a biographical story about Rothko and does not have one main role. “This work is branched and complicated, a lot of things are intertwined in it. Therefore, the show does not depend on one or the other actor, but on our common energy and what we want to convey, ”says the talented stage artist, emphasizing that emotions are more important than facts. He talks about Rothko only because in this work he is one of those who looks at art in a “pure” way, but the show also talks about the art market, its “dirty” side.
“In the first phase of the rehearsal, we talked a lot about lying and hypocrisy, about what in this world is what makes people act absurdly. Especially at a time when the world is full of lies, deceptions, fabrications and manipulations. What is the truth then? Today, in the context of Ukraine, we see very clearly that there is one side and there is the other side, and it is no wonder that a huge part of the nation sees the truth in a completely different way, “says Yuri Bartkevich. that even if there is one truth, the world is changeable, and people must accept its changeability, they must not live with their eyes on it.
What I love and what I hate
The actor says that in the first phase of the rehearsal, which lasted a month and a half last fall, they ended up in a confession room where the director, with his knowledge and worldview, “filled” the actors with information they did not know before. And, trying to be as open as possible, the answer to the essentials cryed out to each of them: what I love and what I hate.
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“Lukash demands the absolute truth the moment you say a word. The truth when you speak and the truth when you don’t speak. The word is not even the most important, much more important, where it comes from and why it comes to you, »says Juris Bartkevičs, emphasizing that he also tries to fulfill this director’s requirement by organizing his inner life for it.
Will art save the world? “Even after fifty years on stage, I can’t say anything like that,” says Juris Bartkevičs. However, he does not deny that, of course, he has expressed his view of the world during these years and, by doing what he likes, has also gained some fulfillment. “But rationally, viewers need to understand that artists don’t work to change the world. They say so, but they work because someone drives them, they want to realize themselves and say something about this world. And if what they say gives something energetic to the world, it leaves its mark. It’s not like it’s fading. Something is definitely stuck. ”
VIDEO – https://failiem.lv/u/7z55vu4pv
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