Matīsa Ozola’s tired clerk in a good suit is busy with trifles in the working room of a money-sharing cantor, decorated by stage designer Kristīne Abikas, which corresponds to the minimalism of the New Riga Theater’s stage design in recent years, shortly after the his beet-colored socks are revealed, which causes further amusement in the hall. Here comes the heroine of Gunas Zariņa, dressed according to the most ingrained ideas about middle-aged philologists. A cliché has become a cliché. The performance Cordelia land can begin.
In the foyer of the New Riga Theater there is still a list of plans for this season, which is no longer entirely true Cordelia land they are not. Have king lear, according to the original plan, the mono-performance of Gunas Zariņa. Transformations have occurred in the process of the work, and currently the theater is promoting the production as an original dramaturgical work, which in itself is a good thing. Thus, King Lear as a character is in a subordinate position, turning from the protagonist of the work into an object of study and discussion. But the greatest paradox is that, when two characters are presented and their biographies are written, the plot of the young man, initially decided on the background, is more interesting, even if not fully developed.
Which side to be on
The authors of the show are four: the director Pēteris Krylovs, his assistant Gerds Lapoška and the two actors. Evaluating each contribution is quite difficult, but in the end the director is responsible for the result, so my choice is to talk about Cordelia land mostly as a performance by Pēteris Krylov, not Guna Zariņa.
Both characters are and are not individualized at the same time. Gunas Zariņas Vizma Gūtmane represents the class of people full of eccentric ideas, who regularly remind the importance of their ideas not only in the various funds, where money is distributed, but also in the editorials of print publications and electronic media. Everyone who has met the bearers of such ideas has experienced an acute sense of unease, realizing that there is a person in front of you who cannot be helped, but must find some form of expression to say so. It doesn’t always work. For example, a person comes with self-made methamphetamines and tries to prove that the Victory Monument should be built with figures of soldiers in the uniforms of the Western allies (this is not the first freshness, but an event that I myself experienced).
Vizma Gutmane is convinced that the institution she visited (which is not called the State Cultural Capital Fund, but is probably a prototype) is obliged to give money directly to her, and not to the five critics who were given money to participate in the theater festivals. Those five critics haunt the woman, it’s another of her obsessions, but in fact anyone who has received the money could already be in this place. “Why not me?” is a sanctimonious question, and I’m pretty sure a director who has found himself in the position of handing out money when most have to say no would do away with such Vizmas without any hesitation. It really seems to me that in this case creative perseverance is deliberately confused with an unhealthy obsession, falling into a state of insane fanaticism is somehow romanticized.
Linards Puķītis studied philology for a year, then changed his curriculum and ended up in the X fund, which distributes money. He embodies the power of the state, acting arrogant and bored, he hasn’t even read the draft, and generally thinks Shakespeare is outdated and King Lear is no exception. Thus, at least initially, he is automatically rendered a negative character, whose main transgression is the rejection of classical philology, but Linard’s emptiness is indicated by the scene in which he moves from one end of the room to the other with an office chair . And then he gradually grows up and sings at the end of the show king Lear pages by heart.
Forgive the reader for my irony, but I am concerned that such a knowledgeable and erudite person as Pēteris Krylovs easily spreads extremely superficial ideas about what goes on in such institutions. On the one hand, of course, these are not documentary statements, quite the contrary, but on the other, it is clear that the director himself is convinced that everything is going wrong. I’ve never been on expert commissions handing out money, and I asked for it once myself (didn’t receive it), so my annoyance seems to be unfounded. However, it seems to me that the very setting of the situation, which the authors incorporated into the play, is not without hypocrisy and superficial judgments. It’s confusing. Especially when combined with the revelations of the director in the program of the show that everything is simplified in the upbringing of young actors: “Easier, simpler and simpler.” And, yes, I admit, I also see the prejudices of an old man towards the younger generation in the director’s attitude towards the character of Linards Pukišis.
Dry storm
The second act of the play is significantly different, as it consists of three separate scenes. In the first, Vizma has arrived in Wales – without the expected support -, she has pitched a tent and experiences a real storm, during which she connects emotionally with the character of Lear. Perhaps, this voluminous play is closest to the original idea, in which Guna Zariņa was going to play Lira. But in this show the actress plays Visma, who feels like Lear, and it’s a fundamentally different filter through which to look at the artist’s work. Respectively, in the visually effective storm scene, in which instead of rain, dust and dust occasionally rise, so to speak, we see how the actress uses her personal emotional experience on the King’s Path in northern Sweden (you can also read at about in the program), but there is no Guna on stage Zariņa is Lear, and Guna Zariņa is Vizma, and in such an arrangement the scene stretches out and becomes monotonous.
A similar problem with borderline situations of the actress’s personality and image was also observed in the performance of Alvjas Hermanis All under the sky, in which sometimes the facts from the biography of the heroine Astrid and the actress Guna overlapped in confusing combinations (in the scene with the video of the late actor Māras Liniņš). The problem is that this scene shows someone’s individual emotional experience, but is that why Vizma went to Wales or is it a parody of the original dream?
The second scene of the second act is significant, in which the character of Matīs Ozola combines the memories of his grandfather with the text of John Donne’s Meditations in the translation and reinterpretation of Raimonds ħirkis, Anna Auzina and Ieva Lešinska. Linards Pukisis’ memories of his unique research in philology merge with his personal experience, and this combination works both dramaturgically and acting-wise. Matīs Ozol’s repeated collaboration with Pēteris Krylovas in this scene was crowned with success and is touching – if we try hard to forget the mentality of the situation itself, i.e. the indirect statement that the hero’s chosen path away from classical philology it was a mistake path and going back to it makes it more decent.
Also exciting is the final scene, in which the two characters meet again using Shakespeare’s text, in which Vizma is in the “role” of Lear, and Lynard is in the “role” of Cordelia. By letting Shakespeare speak, the characters get along better than when they speak without an intermediary, which in this case is literature. It cannot be denied that the last scene has a definite effect on the emotions of the viewer, and yet the question is what the creators of the production wanted to say and what they said in the end. Again, we have to mention the program where, in the published interview of Margaritas Ziedas, you can read all the directions in which the team has been working. So you can’t blame it on superficiality. However, in all these versions and tendencies, Lear himself has become a rather simplified and abstract symbol of transgression, even if in Shakespeare’s play this character is quite contradictory and hurts himself not a little.
Global Cordelia land it’s exciting to watch, even if the inconsistencies in its messaging are annoying and the scenes are unevenly made. After all, you can say: I get angry, so I live, right? It is also a living process.
Cordelia land
JRT in the Small Hall 13.-15.I, 14.-16.II at 18.30
Tickets Ticket havens in the network 20–28 EUR
