Alvja Hermani’s latest production “Operation” Mindfuck “” is undoubtedly a performance-manifesto. It is a logical continuation of the 2022/2023 season of the New Riga Theater applied by the director. for the artistic program of the season – to become a center of intellectual discourse, in other words – an icebreaker of ideas in the cultural space of Latvia.
One way or another, all of the New Riga Theater (JRT) plays premiered this season are included in one way or another: Elita Kļaviņa’s project on family ties and hopes and strength to living off a woman “I’m coming back from afar”, the production of Gata Šmit that investigates the problems of artificial intelligence. R (E) volucija “, the intellectual dispute” Žižek. Petersons. Duel of the Century “between Alvja Hermani and the actors Viļas Vudņiņas and Kaspars Znotiņas and the production of the German playwright Marija Cade’s comedy” Talking about sex “, directed by Kristīne Krūze, dedicated to the theme of sexuality. However, the production is still more coherently inserted in the artistic “theater” of the director of recent years, constantly dedicating each new representation to a topic discussed in society and circulating backstage, moreover, choosing as a basis a wide variety of material texts – from the classics (the forbidden chapter of Dostoevsky’s “The Devil” in the performance “Post Scriptum”) to fresh texts that are not yet known in the cultural space of Latvia.
