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| Simultaneous play or the miracle of Alvis Hermanis Vilnis Vējš There's no explanation for the miracle of Alvis Hermanis in the history of Latvian theatre. | |
| This, at least, is the impression obtained from the many reviews, comments and analyses, and even love letters, published in the press hitherto. Recently, these writings have focussed on the director's course towards "re-starting" realism, or his involvement with documentary stories, tracing events from life. It's hard to identify any precursors for the realism of Hermanis - unless we perceive as such those classics of Russian or Western drama, whose work the Latvian director cannot even have seen. And that's not surprising, if we view the New Riga Theatre in the hermetically sealed context of Latvian theatre or - as in the major discussion that has recently emerged - in comparison only with the (Latvian) literary tradition of storytelling. Where did this Hermanis come from? The current view of academic thinking on drama is that "...he obtained a considerable body of knowledge independently." This is what the ever-proper Guna Zeltiņa writes in her study "Latvian Theatre, the 1990s and the Turn of the Century". In other words, the new documentality, along with Hermanis himself, is a lonely comet, isolated in the space of his individual talent and powerful personality. Such an explanation would not be out of place in a Romantic tradition, where a lonely genius represents or is contrasted to groups, communities and society. However, contemporary art studies do not exclude a contextual view. Even more interestingly, in the real art scene, and possibly in the experience of a whole generation of theatregoers, Hermanis is by no means a lone figure. Thus, a discourse separate from institutionalised theatre criticism, into which Hermanis' drama fits in very well, is provided by guest performances of contemporary European drama, which have been organised with amazing consistency by the Institute of New Theatre. Re-writing the history of Latvian theatre is certainly not the task of this paper, but the author does wish to sketch in some independent ideas. The temptation is all the greater, since the drama of Hermanis, his theatre company and artist Monika Pormale are currently the only international ‘assists on goal' of Latvian art in Europe (apart from such an offbeat field as opera). Viewed from this perspective, the processes and lines of research appear completely different than was hitherto accepted: extensively studied phenomena may turn out to be pitifully local, while others, that have gone unnoticed, might turn out to be important. In time, another Berelis (a well-known Latvian literature critic - ed.) is likely to appear in the history of art and drama, someone who will write a history of their own - but who will be the first? The inability to view Hermanis as part of the line of development of Latvian theatre has a simple explanation: with a continuation of the thinking of the Soviet period, art history (let us not distinguish between visual and performing arts) appears to constitute so-called professional art, as opposed to unprofessional, amateur art. It's quite incredible that this archaic division still exists, at least in the world of drama! To this day, only those expressions of art that underwent the multi-stage initiation process of the totalitarian system, starting with the entrance exams of monopoly institutions of higher education and ending with the title of (Performing) Artist of the USSR, are viewed as professional. This went along with recognition or censure on the part of the totalitarian state, the Central Committee, and the KGB. We may also include in this Soviet heritage the strict di-vision of disciplines, where a professional in one field is regarded as an amateur in another. To leave in force these boundaries of professionalism, once laid down by the powers that be, means accepting criteria that have been morally bankrupt for 20 years already. And where does this leave Hermanis? He's not a professional director at all! A joke, of course. But it's no joke, when a professional (?) theatre critic, after watching productions well known in Europe, declares that they were devoid of art! (Zane Radzobe on the Homo alibi festival in Delfi internet portal, 12.09.2006.) It is characteristic that the ovations to these productions were organised by the rising stars of our own poetry, visual arts and music. Alvis Hermanis is often dubbed a student of Māra Ķimele. And Ķimele is a student of Anatoly Efros - a myth that fits very well into the Russophile tradition of Latvian theatre criticism. But this leaves no room for Ķimele as an adept of hippy subculture, someone who infiltrated into institutionalised theatre the practice of the happenings begun by Andris Grīnbergs; it does not encompass her affinity with Ansis Rūtentāls, and her later collaboration with Aija Zariņa in joint performances, etc. Hermanis himself regards as his most important period the short time he spent in the Riga Pantomime, the handwritten translations of the works of Grotowski that he read, and especially that which he experienced at the student theatre of the University of Latvia and the method he learned under Modris Tenisons (recorded interviews in the author's archive). The involvement of Tenisons in the production "Tālāk" ("Onwards") and the twofold return to the play "Liesmojošā tumsa" ("Flaming Darkness") only appears to be an incomprehensible caprice, as the press has described it several times. It is more likely that Hermanis' style of work has been influenced by phenomena in art that simply have not found their place in books on the history of theatre. Also to be reconsidered is the view that Latvia, in contrary to other European countries, had no experience at all of performance art and its interaction with drama. Considering the information scene in which the creative quest of Hermanis may have originated, the idea arises quite independently that among the early influences of the present star of the theatre is not only professional drama (Imants Adermanis being Hermanis' teacher of acting mastery), but also expressions of drama quite distinct from it, and, of course, Latvian contemporary art, right from its first weak expressions, which, interestingly enough, coincide with the time when Alvis Hermanis was ten. So, where is the thread that has brought Hermanis, and the whole of Latvian theatre along with him, to a new quest for realism? The answer is to be found in the wide range of approaches that developed the current style of work of the leading figure at the New Riga Theatre. In an almost symbolic way, Alvis Hermanis has tested in his work the majority of issues that art has addressed to reality since the great paradigmatic shift of the sixties. The focus on the visual and auditory expressions of reality, on non-verbal communication, on cyclical processes, on seemingly pointless activities, on the emancipation of the body, on the infiltration of mass culture and subcultures into fine art, on the challenge of technological possibilities - almost every one of the clichés characterising contemporary art can be applied to the aesthetic quest hitherto traced by Hermanis. Often, his relationships with reality show very clear analogies in the exhibitions or events organised by artists in Latvia. In Hermanis' early productions, such as "Madame de Sade", by the Japanese dramatist Yukio Mishima (1993), we can see influences from the productions of Bob Wilson, who was a popular director at that time. (Videos of his productions circulated among Latvian artists at around 1990.) But it seems that the Theatre of Movement of the University of Latvia, and its creator Ansis Rūtentāls, may have been no less influential. By the way, he, too, was inspired by the Japanese - by the aesthetics of butoh, about which there was only partial information at the time. The use of video projection in "The Picture of Dorian Grey" (1994) came at a time when Latvia already had a significant tradition of video art festivals. Just as the production "Fricis Bārda. Ambient" (1996) has a link with the world music festivals that have already become a tradition in Riga. It's probably not worth seeking the precursors of the production "Onwards" (2004) in the wide world, when the first transformation of a reality show into a work of art in Latvia had been seen already in 1994 in the exhibition "Culture of Life" by Miķelis Fišers and Gints Gabrāns. The artistic designer of "Latvian Love" (2006) Monika Pormale had already participated in a similar project by Gints Gabrāns, the "Riga Dating Agency" of 2000. A documentary driver's story, bearing a relationship to the one shown as part of the "Latvian Stories" (2004), had been performed by Linards Kulless (the "Euphoria" project of 2003) in a setting created by Ieva Kauliņa in the Small Hall of the New Riga Theatre and at its permanent guest performance venue, the Hebel Theatre in Berlin, on the initiative of German artists. Of course, Hermanis inhabits the space of world culture, but together with other Latvian artists, rather than in isolation from them. More and more analogies could be identified, an exercise certainly not aimed at finding indications of copying or lack of originality (as one might in criticism based on outdated principles), but in order to outline the field of artistic activities, within which the New Riga Theatre is no stranger even in Latvia. The "turn to realism" seen in a string of recent productions at the New Riga Theatre, viewed as a phenomenon out of its context, really can delight the reactionaries, lovers of "good old realism", since it seems to signal that Alvis Hermanis' earlier non-traditional search for expression was just some kind of delusion. However, the context of contemporary art testifies to something different, since it has moved away from ideas concerning a universal succession of art styles. In its place, we can witness a variety of "direct links" between art and reality existing contemporaneously, manifested at the New Riga Theatre in the works of other directors as well, and in the openness to interdisciplinary projects. At last year's Homo alibi festival at the New Riga Theatre, the New Theatre Institute showed productions widely acclaimed in Europe (the "Gob Squad" company's production "Super Night Shot" and "The Great War" by "Hotel Modern" from the Netherlands), as well as a programme of international collaborative productions entitled "Temps d'images", and invited people to lectures, convincingly demonstrating the dual relationship with reality that characterises the interdisciplinary approach. Thus, the current tendency of directly addressing reality confirms at the same time the power of the ever-present aesthetic clichés and the importance of aestheticising tools in the artist's communication with the audience. For example, "The Great War" (using documentary literary material) was performed in an unusual dolls' exercise range in front of the viewers' eyes and shown on the screen, already as a "counterfeit" fiction film, using moving cameras, realtime editing and a soundtrack created on the spot. The stunning reality effect that delighted the audience was achieved not so much through the real presence of the viewers in the artists' activities, but also through the sophisticated application of the aesthetics, structure and dramatic principles of war movies. A viewer who had not seen at least a dozen war movies (Russian, or even better, American), would not even be able to follow the imaginary level of the story, and would thus experience nothing at all. Similarly, "Super Night Shot" is the story of a superhero in the streets of Riga (staged and filmed an hour before the performance and edited on the spot), which presents a moving, perfect stylisation of a love story and tension worthy of a thriller. Moreover, both productions showed that a multi-media production is capable of overcoming the level of the technical experiment, creating a polyphonic message rich in imagery, something that has repeatedly been doubted in Latvia (for example, after the Homo alibi festival of 2002). Of course, it all needs not only very expensive technology and finely-tuned metaphorical thinking, but also competence with the tools of the director's trade, in other words - mastery. The laboratory work created by Izolde Cēsniece and Igors Gorzkovskis (a mix of the drama series and the interactive reality show), like the production of Andrei Jarovoi and Magali Desbazeille, achieved no more than a clever demonstration of a trick "with a moral". A real trip in a freight container (once again an example of "counterfeit", since the trip through the port and its environs was presented to viewers as a trip across Europe) was presented in a guest production by the "Cargo Sofia" project, organised by the New Theatre Institute in November 2006. Here the manipulation with reality was particularly sophisticated: direction of the action was entrusted to real Bulgarian drivers, making the urban settings of Riga play out in front of the viewers' eyes the streets of another city, national borders and petrol stations. The precisely staged and technically perfect simulation of reality achieved a sense of personal adventure in the audience - a result that is traditionally expected from drama. It would be naive to hope that every new trend in art will tell the viewer something more significant about reality than the one which preceded it. The illusions of a once-and-for-all solution should be jettisoned. Just like the hopes that, for example, Alvis Hermanis, so long as his health holds up, might remain true to this new formula of creativity, to the pleasure of those who prefer realism. However, the scene in contemporary theatre, which offers a previously unseen simultaneous play with reality, is encouraging - perhaps we at least were not born either too early or too late to reach enlightenment through one of the routes offered by art | |
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