This “experiment of civilization” is doomed. Conversation with director Alvi Herman / Article / LSM.lv

This was the second time you would collaborate with the Moscow Theater of Nations after Shushin’s Stories. Its cooperation broke down. It would probably have been thicker in fact if it had not been for the Crimean events in 2014, the events in Ukraine and you had not severed your ties with Russia. At that time, you were also included in the famous Russian blacklist for their statements on their foreign policy. What changed? Why did you resume cooperation with one of the leading Russian theaters this time?

While I was on the blacklist, Mironov said that they would be willing to go here, to Riga, to try not to cross the border at all, because they wanted me to do something for the theater. Because “Shuksina’s Stories” is still almost like a calling card for the National Theater all these years. That was the original agreement. In addition, the idea was to create the show as a co-production with the New Riga Theater, that there would be two decorations and the actors would go to Riga every month to play. Unfortunately, this was not for purely accounting reasons. In both countries, it proved to be bureaucratically difficult. That was its original intention, and as a result, I also made this show, in fact, without setting foot in Russia. We tried as much as we could on those screens, and then in August the actors spent a few weeks with me here in Riga, in the rehearsal hall of the New Riga Theater, we made their show.

But it is still played in Russia. Has your attitude towards Russia changed?

I look at it a little more philosophically in the sense that I, for example, always get on my nerves, that foreigners tell us and instructions tell us what we are doing wrong. For example, I don’t like it when something is said about Latvia. And what’s more, it’s been more than 10 years now that I haven’t actually been to Russia. With one exception – I had left for a few days last spring, Gorbachev wanted to meet me and talk about this in person. That was the only exception.

Well, and with the fact that I haven’t been there for so long, I honestly don’t even have a real opinion in the sense that I really don’t understand this land.

I do not understand how it can be that they all hate Gorbachev so abnormally. Virtually no exceptions, including liberals in Russia. Many have such views. Still the greatest hero Stalin…

Not for everyone though.

Not for everyone, yes, but for most.

At the same time, I saw footage sent by the Moscow Theater of Nations, where Gorbachev was greeted with applause from the audience after this premiere.

Let’s start with the fact that people close to the Gorbachev Foundation were invited to the particular show and, in a word, it was actually a very special evening.

Speaking between us, there was also a behind-the-scenes ambulance just in case, because I really don’t know how it’s two and a half hours to watch myself and my dead wife on stage.

That, for me, as they say, kept the imagination running out.

Now that the shows are already going with the audience and with the ticket audience, the feeling is that at the start of the show, most of the halls are against. And then somewhere at the twentieth minute we drag them to our side. Because the story is not quite about politics, at least not directly.

This is a love story.

No matter how sorry it sounds, I’m sorry, but it’s such a real love story, yes.

Due to Covid-19, the premiere of “Women and Men” according to the play by Majas Cades was moved to your theater, but now it will happen immediately. I was very intrigued by your description of this show, where you claim that men and women have changed roles nowadays, and this has led to the fall of the Western demographic curve. And then that’s what this show is about. Can you comment in more detail?

The show is no one there for socio-political research and the like. The show is a comedy. Bitter though, but comedy. The show consists of an infinite number of small scenes of what it would look like if men and women were literally swapped places.

But what does that mean?

For example, give birth to men.

Men breastfeed.

Yes, but see how – a lot of it is no longer a terrible fantasy. In Japan, for example, they have already devised a parrot to feed a baby that a man can put on, and there is milk, and the baby has the complete illusion that it is the mother’s pups.

You don’t like these? That in itself is not such a bad thing. The man finds out how it is.

Of course, as they say, everyone rests as they wish. You can have fun in every way, but I wouldn’t do such experiments for my children.

Do you really think that any unpleasant changes are happening with masculinity and femininity nowadays? The kind you don’t want to experience in your children’s generation?

I will say it in a nutshell – in general, I am glad that I am the age at which we have still managed to live in a somewhat normal world.

Because what is starting now, of course, is all completely sick and completely wrong.

It will not be possible to rebel against the mother of nature.

And do you really feel this sickness, this distortion on a daily basis?

It is not even about my views and the like, all the same demographic statistics show that this type of society is simply dying out. This is an experiment that will simply end in extinction. This “experiment of civilization” has been decided, it can be seen from any of the tables.

No children are born in such a society, everything just goes to zero. All tables go down.

And you’re sad about it.

Well, you see, since I have a regiment of children myself, it can also be called sad, yes.

You have not only 7 children, but also a whole group of “children”. Namely, this is your course for young actors of the New Riga Theater, which is also launched in the series “Agency”. What surprised you when you read the Agency’s content description is that you have caught on to that “office plankton” speaking in your former language, which you once treated very contemptuously. Say that “Latvian stories” could not be made into a single “white collar”, but this time the employees of the advertising agency have become heroes. Is there any contradiction?

The fact of the matter is that, returning to the previous theme, our socialization is also becoming more and more regulated at the political and domestic level, and globalism is standardizing everything.

As a result, people become more equal, more similar to each other and more bored.

This is a big problem for theater and art. Because we are already interested in heroes, personalities, individualities that are different from something, that have something peculiar. It is not for nothing, for example, to watch modern documentaries – with what difficulty these directors dig the people who are interesting in the field. Well, of course, we drove through the countryside, through some provinces. In fact, the further away from cities, the better, because in cities it is difficult to find simply interesting stories, interesting people.

This was also one of the reasons why 20 years ago or 15, when we started “Latvian Stories” and the like, there were as few citizens as possible. But now we all remain that way. And now I just started to be more careful – we have to help with some magnifying glass and look for its passions, those dramas among us, the boring townspeople. This film “Agency” is dedicated to modern Rigans. I would even say that this is a movie about JRT viewers.

Will it be a comedy?

Also, of course, because life is in all colors. When everything turned shut in the spring, the main idea was how to come up with something that reaches the viewers of JRT, because we have small herbs here. And the only idea was cinema. So the target audience for this cinema is the audience of JRT, and the story is about them, so to speak.

You have said that you have decided to distribute this series yourself, not through a television, and that this will happen not only because it is for your profit, but also because the series is so politically correct that hardly any television does it. may show.

Let’s start with the fact that we have been working on this thing for about half a year, about 70 people plus those invited from outside – operators, assemblers. JRT has invested a lot of money there. And what would you recommend to us? What options?

I was about the political correctness, that was the question – what is so wrong there?

Well, in the sense that there are no producers above us, and I don’t have to report. We are not monitored. As free people, we also made it in a very free way.

So there is hope that it will be a bit cheeky and brave?

As we are, so will we be.

If there will be another break in theater, which is possible by watching the Covid-19 figures today, will you perhaps approach a feature film?

It is a 10-hour feature film. We transformed JRT into a mini film studio for half a year. As I said, we took the operators from the sidelines with Mārtiņš Graudu in the lead. The setting is 10 hours of cinema, and the technical parameters are such that we can show him on the big screen, which we will do.

Where, right here in the theater?

Yes, if you can, then in the theater.

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