Review of Valters Sílis’ “Mom!” at the Dirty Deal Teatro

It has come to pass that we tend to expect form and content searches from non-state theaters, which would probably not be found in state theaters. However, it is also possible to stage a very traditional emotional story without special experiments, focusing on the qualities of the content and acting. Dirty Deal Teatro the production of the director Valters Sílis Mom!for which he also wrote the play himself, is such a case.

As far as we know, the story of Ausma, who we only see in the show as a helpless woman on a sick bed, has real prototypes among the director’s relatives, but it is not completely documentary material. The images that appear before the main character’s eyes are reflections of her past, and Dawn’s biography is created from fragmentary episodes.

Relationship with reality

In the show Mom! Valters Sílis combines his interest in two topics. First of all, it is the impact of specific historical events on human destiny. In the case of Ausma, too, it is about specific nodal points that irrevocably change the lives of family members. Secondly, it is not the first time that the heroines of Walter Silas’ plays have been put in a situation where they have to fight with obstacles caused by physical or mental illness (for example, the production Mind at the National Theatre). In the show Mom! the woman cannot walk, but the viewer does not immediately know how old she is at the time of telling the story. However, it is clear that Ausma’s immersion in the moments of her life is stimulated precisely by the fact that she does not have the opportunity to actively live in the present.

A woman’s consciousness floats – the performance begins with a cry, which is also included in the title. At that moment, the main character is convinced that she is a girl and does not recognize the commoner who goes about her daily routine. The further development of the plot gradually puts everything in its place, but Ausma’s inability to accept her current state flashes by every now and then. Relationships with reality are formed by two sets of characters in the play: one is real people who are next to Ausma at a given moment, the other is those who live in her memories. Accordingly, the tasks also differ for the compact ensemble of actors.

The task of Ines Puja, who plays the role of Ausma, is very difficult, because Ausma remains motionless in bed even in the flashback episodes. If the scenes of the present and the past had been handled distinctly differently, allowing the heroine to play out her memories in action, the actress would have had more opportunities to react emotionally to what was happening, and the episodes themselves would have been more elaborate in terms of plot. However, this was not the director’s goal. Partial transfer of the action to memories makes it possible to solve the action conditionally, also using elements of stylization, for example, Ausma’s daughter, as a dancer in folk costume, also solves the vicissitudes of her private life.

The laconic space requires almost no props as characters come and go. The age of Ines Puja’s character cannot be determined until it is stated in the text, that is, the actress does not play the fact that she is old. This avoids illustrativeism and keeps the audience intrigued for a while as to what is really happening. Ines Puja’s reactions are precise and specific – from anger at the moments when Ausma cannot recognize the woman who feeds and takes care of her, to the desire to scream not because of physical pain, but because of powerlessness. The main character is revealed to us only in dialogue and in reaction to the actions of other characters, while the current physical condition of the woman is projected onto the scenes of the past, for example, she, having returned to her school age in her mind, admits to a classmate that she cannot go to the performance of the school drama group, because for incomprehensible reasons can’t move. But the story is not about disability since childhood.

Just a function

It is a thankless task for Indra Briķe in the role of Ausma’s daughter. Her existence on the stage is limited only to technical functions – speaking in a routine kind voice, serving food or performing daily hygiene procedures. Of course, there is a wish that the actress would have been given the opportunity to create a more comprehensive character, but Valters Sílis did not want to develop the daughter’s line separately. Currently, the only episode in which the relationship between the two actresses blossoms into human harmony is the conversation about age when Ausma asks her daughter for a mirror. At that moment, she has come out of the foggy clouds of her consciousness into a reality she has to come to terms with.

The task of Ilva Centeres and Jānis Kroņas is to play several characters, some of them are only sketched in very short scenes, some are given slightly more significant features. Ilva Centere is an actress who has a precise sense of form and in each of her small appearances gives the viewer the information necessary to create a gallery of women around Ausmu. Since becoming a freelancer, Ilva Centere has been playing secondary roles in various projects, but it would be interesting if there was a director who would set the actress more difficult tasks.

All the men in Ausma’s life are played with Latvian loveliness by Jānis Kronis – they are both good and flawed characters – and it is Ausma’s not quite harmonious private life that becomes the material for comic episodes. The little girls needed for the plot of the play are played by Vilma Landaus. Thus, the functional approach of Valters Sílis as a playwright becomes clear, employing as few actors as possible, but at the same time this approach also has a certain symbolism – the characters of memories from different years have the same faces, they are universal types.

For the show Mom! has human warmth and honesty. The director wants to tell a life story from the heart and does it without pretensions to complex form or innovation. Valters Sīlis does not have to prove anything, he is just such a stable phenomenon in Latvian theater that he can do what he considers important. The theater confirms the uniqueness of human life every now and then, but it is not superfluous to remind it. This is a case where perhaps the story really could have branched out. Then the production would have more weight, which would go from the fate of one specific family to wider generalizations.