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| On Stage Design Anita Vanaga Stage design, alongside the theatre, is born of the spirit and experience of a sacred rite. Its primary task was to lead the participant through a sacred space until finally the hidden meaning of the ritual is revealed. As the theatre became more profane, stage design was limited to showing the way to the place of action. The 20th century returned stage design to the big system where, through the use of the broadened discourse of conceptualism, literature came across architecture, art, music... As soon as a new model of the structure of the world, style of art, material or technology appears, stage design hurries to adapt it for its own use. It can use brilliant discoveries, stereotypes and clichés, as well as other products of sub-culture. Nothing is wasted. By nature a kind of omnivore. Does stage design create anything new? Stage design creates its own space. In the Babel of forms it finds possibilities for synchronous translation and changes in language. It can be seen from at least two points of view - from inside and outside the production. In the end stage design can comment about itself. This gives the third point of view, the "third eye". Many stage designers, like migrating birds, seek their fortunes outside the theatre taking with them the thinking of a director. Ilmārs Blumbergs, Izolde Cēsniece, Gints Gabrāns, Monika Pormale, Vilnis Vējš, Mārtiņš Vilkārsis... There are stage designers who, having been tempted into the theatre from the other arts, bring with them their individuality as we can see in the work of Aigars Bikše and Ieva Jurjāne. The absolute stage designer is a rarity. Andris Freibergs is a rarity. Stage design creates universal coherences in a situation of heightened tension from fragments and scraps of life, from individual words and angles. Thus Isis revived Osiris by gathering up his divided body or, as another variation of the myth has it, by conceiving from her dead husband. Stage design renews the creative force. The theory of relativity makes us ask - stage design creates something new in relation to what? In relation to the spectator. Art scholar Vitaly Paciukov wrote: "Previously in a linear perspective, the spectator found himself outside the boundaries of observable reality. But from today's point of view, he is forever crossing the border of experimental reality that separates the spectator from the participant." At the beginning of the 20th century, British stage designer and theorist Gordon Craig regarded the actor as an element of stage design. This was considered most revolutionary, contemporary stage design had already managed to integrate the viewer - literally. The spectator had become a component of the stage design. Here lies the answer to Izolde Cēsniece's question about "my stage design". Integrating stage design contains within it both the concept of the performance as well as its self-reflection that creates a new layer, as it should in the age of total commentary. | |
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THE SCENIC MODEL OF ILMĀRS BLUMBERGS
In the history of Latvian theatre, Jānis Kuga (1878-1969) is traditionally regarded as the father of stage design. If a godfather were required, then we might award the honour to Kārlis Johansons (1892-1929), a sculptor from the Riga Group of Artists, a pioneer of Constructivism, who at the very beginning of the 1920s wished to create a new form of spatial art, which would be universal, would require a minimum of material, and would be distinguished by lightness, mobility, changeability and independence of the force of gravity. Kārlis Johansons developed the idea of space as a concrete material. He considered that the construction augments the material (space), leaving it unfilled and blurring the usual separation between the interior and exterior of a form. (1) This follower of rationalism relinquished any aesthetic licence, and soon renounced art itself. However, the idea, or rather the fragments of the idea, and a small number of photographs of his works remain. And it seems that the idea was physical realised precisely in stage design. THE MATERIAL - SPACE Long-standing architectural practice has the archetypical model of the theatre stage as a box with one of the walls removed. The geometric certainty and precision of the empty space provides the greatest inspiration. All are convinced of this, as soon as the view across the threshold opens up. Empty space is the most radical, since it possesses a special readiness to be transformed into any quality whatsoever. Since, you see, an empty space is never empty. It has its own dynamism and logic, its landmarks and directions - centre, periphery, corner, top and bottom, height, width, depth, breadth or narrowness, angles and perspectives. Or ideal proportions, which serve to order all the abstract parameters of the contents of the box to provide an illusion of emptiness. The permanence of space collects changing time, space attracts that which does not belong to it. Space enjoys adapting Time, putting on a carnival gown. In processuality, space sees its own character, its alter ego. Space develops in relation to that which it addresses - processuality. Precisely these two things are important to artist Ilmārs Blumbergs, whatever he may do. Whether creating theatre or creating a book, whether writing (always with pointers to the time and place), drawing or painting. But the performance space can also change and it can be independent of the set designer. In collaboration with Ilmārs Blumbergs and the actors of the Valmiera Drama Theatre, director Māra Ķimele staged Jean Anouilh's "Medea" (1975), the first production in Latvia held in a performance environment that represented an alternative to the box. It was shown in the Anglican Church in Riga and St Simon's Church in Valmiera, in cultural centres and at a meeting of amateur filmmakers on the Kurzeme coast near the village of Lapmežciems, with torches lit in the darkness and food prepared on a campfire. It may be that this unique performance is preserved in some private film or photo archive. Integrating the specific conditions of the location, the production revealed the performance space as a living substance. THE INSTRUMENT - THE CONSTRUCTION Ilmārs Blumbergs graduated from the Department of Painting of the Latvian SSR Academy of Art with a set design for the tragedy "Jean d'Arc" by Andrejs Upītis at the Riga Russian Drama Theatre (directors A. Katz and I. Peker, costume design by Andris Freibergs, 1972). Here he formulated the principle of the unity of space and time, where the preconditions for their sovereignty are eliminated and consciousness assumes the role of binding them together. Scenography is a union of the space and the stream of consciousness. In "Jean d'Arc", the space and the stream of consciousness was formed by the "white cube". The characters - the will of the people - gradually filled the space with an arrangement of objects - the construction. This escalation of forms, relating to the spiritual experience, was transformed into a symbolic fire, bringing destruction and the possibility of a new beginning. The example of "Jean d'Arc" shows the transformation of dramatic structure into a dynamic language, a meeting of theatrical and visual arts interests. Even before Ilmārs Blumbergs, scenography (the term "harsh style scenography" has also been used) made use of readymade items, installations and elements of performance art, but Ilmārs Blumbergs was the one to imbue the concept with innate value. This does not mean that scenography can do without the theatre performance, as imagined by the Italian futurists. As experience in conceptualism is gained, the concept behind the production can obtain publicity even before the curtain rises, and there is firm foundation for speaking of an ideal monotheatre of the scenographer, not regulated by the director, the production budget or the actors' natural wish not to be simply part of the scenography. Thus, 1972 was a milestone in the history of Latvian theatre, with the advancement of conceptualist phenomena that were to develop very belatedly in art. The concept is what chooses the construction. It can also appear as an autonomous idea, grafted onto the production. Ilmārs Blumbergs' winged words-scenographers don't read plays! - reveal the artist as a master of paradox. Such an approach provokes unique situations and reactions to them, rather than providing a convenient mise en scène that permits the actor to stay with socially or culturally created reality and gives the viewer the satisfaction of recognising himself on the stage. The artist cannot theoretically sense in full the range of action of such a formal construction. This is shown by practice, providing a powerful opposition to the director, who must be able to bring together the artist's conception, the acting, the music and lighting into a complicated, multi-layered unity. The upturned scalene pyramid created by Ilmārs Blumbergs for Henrik Ibsen's dramatic poem "Brand" is one of the concepts where the efforts by the Daile Theatre company resulted in an amazing fusion, creating a truly innovative production (directed by Arnolds Liniņš, choreography by Modris Tenisons, 1975). We find the motivation for the kinetic construction, which the logocentric viewer equates with a fragment of Pastor Brand's soul and the answer to the question Deus caritatis?, in the monochrome dynamic silhouettes and bodily states of agitation of the actors, in the tension between the spoken word and the way it is expressed. At the same time, the construction becomes involved in a relationship with cosmically infinite space, the galaxy destroyed by the big bang and the darkness, taking light as the mediator, a light whose warmth is not felt. In lighting up the form, the idea is also illuminated. In this production, two different scales are apparent - the human and the superhuman. The atemporal and aspatial is the category that, once expressed in the 20 rectangular flats of the set, becomes an important theme for the artist throughout his further artistic biography. A construction based in the tradition of illusory painted sets is Henrik Ibsen's play "Per Gynt" (directed by Ādolfs Šapiro, Youth Theatre, 1979). Ilmārs Blumbergs created a painted, sloping system of floor cloths, where the cloths characterising the setting succeeded one another in a dynamic sequence. Groups of characters appeared on the stage in particular colour schemes, which blended into a multicoloured mix, culminating in the bacchanalia scene. The idea of the rainbow-like, sensuously colourful stream of life that flows around Per Gynt without touching him is expressed in the unchanging linen cloth of the hero's dress. And when the last backcloth is removed, with a graveyard scene, the audience sees the construction on the stage uncovered - the resolution of the tragedy at a philosophical level. On the other hand, a systems analysis approach characterises Ilmārs Blumbergs' treatment of Rainis's tragedy "Joseph and His Brothers" (directed by Arnolds Liniņš, Daile Theatre, 1981), with a search for the answer to the questions: What is love? What is truth? What is service? The artist turns to a mythic structure steeped in psychology, creating mystery in the primeval wilds of Canaan and the artificially cultivated Egyptian temple, a closed space without daylight. Both settings have in common the black pit - the motif of sacrifice, brought out into the proscenium. The pit as the deciding situation for inner spiritual elevation. In this production too, Ilmārs Blumbergs operates with colour, revealing an archetypical layer in the Jewish costumes, which utilise the Jewish colour mandala. At the same time one cannot deny his delight in precise details, corporeity, particular words, gestures, movements, optical pauses... *** After eighteen years, Ilmārs Blumbergs left the theatre. His departure was unexpected, but even less expected was his return to set design in 1998 with Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida" (director: Māra Ķimele, conductor: Gintaras Rinkevičius, Latvian National Opera). A new construction was discovered for this mystery of love-an ornament played out in the opera by a digitised system involving flats, colour backcloths and lights. The pattern of the universal rhythm is regulated by a shared computer programme, permitting one to speak of new quality in the scenic experience accumulated over the centuries. Finally, there is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" (director: Viesturs Kairišs, conductor: Gintaras Rinkevičius, 2001, Latvian National Opera). This demonstrates a wish to rise above the concept that he himself had generated, synchronising the mystical, poetic and the real time-space. The unity of forms, their proportionality and radiance, which has been regarded since the medieval mysteries as an assemblage of attributes of beauty, has reached an impasse and experiences abrupt changes. The artist feels the need to break out of homogeneity, to push off from previous achievements, introducing in this deconstruction an open overture and finale, an open space, optical contrasts, dissonances and falsettos. Ilmārs Blumbergs augments his resources with biographical motifs seen on the street, everyday gestures and associations with current events. Although one must ask-what is an artist's biography? His productions, books and travels. The productions, exhibitions and books of others. Thoughts. What can be more private than thoughts? Spiritual vivisection. It is visualised in the écorché-the person stripped of his skin. Here, in the formal lavishness (including minimalism!) one can see that which a thriftier artist would have spread across several different works. For "The Magic Flute" is an exhibition about the creative process itself, about the tension of mutation. About relinquishing instruments-constructions-magic flutes. And about the possibility of continuing. THE FADING OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR The scenographic model of Ilmārs Blumbergs has become a structure that, in the concept and development it presents, offers several finales. Several interpretations. The poor viewer! There is no absolute interpretation. The sculptor Kārlis Johansons, disappointed in art, which turned out not to provide a universal solution, went to work in a factory. What will this stage presenter of consciousness Ilmārs Blumbergs do? 1. Gough M. In the Laboratory of Construktivism. Karl Ioganson's Cold Structures // October 84, Spring 1998. - P. 95. __________ "Dostoevsky-Trip" by Vladimir Sorokin (director Ģirts Ēcis, 2003). New Riga Theatre. Photo: Mihail Rizhkov Monika Pormale, stage and costume designer: The task of the stage design - to say everything openly to the full, to give double meaning to the text. This is an identification and not spectator's position. Seven people find themselves in a scene from Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot" when 10 000 are thrown into the fire - this number appears on a screen. The drugs trip begins. The number decreases, changing with the music. Doping creates parallels with the sports industry, sponsors' brands and the Olympic movement whose symbol is five rings - here there are seven. Seven different worlds united by drugs. It was important to show that there existed such heroes as Anastasia Filippovna, Myshkin, Rogozhin. The numbers 1, 7, 6 appear constantly in motion against the monolithic 10 000. The trip is their contest with the big system. The characters shoot some Dostoyevsky, put on overshoes and tying themselves to bungee ropes they form eight runways. The ropes provide the resistance without which it would be difficult to portray a heavy physical load. The illusion is created of frantic movement. The finish line must be reached, which no one does. The finish as a mirage. The trip is over and the screen shows 0:7. Like a score. The stage changes. The trippers come to, unhook themselves and instead of champagne, they drink mineral water and tell their childhood memories. They are all sweaty and take of their clothes. They undress both literally and figuratively. With every teller the result on the screen decreases. Overdose. The stadium gates close. "Pure Dostoyevsky is lethal... let's try it with Steven King." __________ "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams (director Galina Polishchuk, 2003). New Riga Theatre. Monika Pormale, stage and costume designer: The director decided to put Williams in a 30 square metre apartment in the Riga tower block district of Purvciems. To show people with below average incomes and who have lived in the times when everything was the same for everyone. The space (a film set - apartment) is divided into two - a kitchen and living room. The cast-iron-plant, a small climbing ivy, a brown floor, greasy lacquered furniture. Others would call it a reality show. The word used most often in stage design - standard. The artist's ambitions must be put aside. __________ "The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (director Juris Rijnieks, lighting by M. Feldmanis, 2002). Liepāja Theatre. Gints Gabrāns, stage designer: The main thing is the reflecting principle, the transformations of reflections. If we light the Perspex mirror in the first sector that is at the back of the stage, then the light is reflected against the plastic and the mirror film that divides off the second sector and bounces back. If we light the second sector, the light bounces against the plastic and mirror film wall through which nothing can be seen. __________ "The Flying Dutchman" by Richard Wagner (director Andrejs Žagars, conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius, set designer Andris Freibergs, lighting by Kevin Wyn-Jones, 2003). Latvian National Opera. Kristīne Pasternaka, costume designer: The "Flying Dutchman" is not a costume parade and so the costume silhouettes are as simple as possible, perhaps even a little everyday - sailors, a chorus of women. Important for me in terms of colour were the heavy sea on a grey and hazy day, the tones of the cliffs, the sand on the shore. However, thinking about the performance, in my imagination I first saw images that were not determined by the silhouette but by movement - frozen half way, a little ecstatically reaching forward - in a warm, humid mist created by the sea and full of longing when it seems that the heart flies from the body and merges with longings vibrating in the air. But the body breaks in its inability to follow this tendency to merge. __________ "Orpheus and Eurydice" by Christoph Willibald Gluck (director Baņuta Rubess, conductor Andris Veismanis, set designer Ivars Noviks, lighting by Paul Mathiesen, 2000). Latvian National Opera. Photo: Gunārs Janaitis Kristīne Pasternaka, costume designer: Orpheus. Paradise. Souls on a swing. A scene was needed where a slightly heightened, unreal harmony ruled. The stage designer offered a swing and that gave me the idea of long, saturated sky blue images. __________ "Alice" - ballet by Andris Vilcāns (choreography Olga Zhitluhina, costume designer Sheila, lighting by Lucy Carter, 2002). Latvian National Opera. Aigars Ozoliņš, stage designer: My greatest joy and despair in working on the production's set design is the creative contact with the director. Being aware that he is the first creator of the idea's impulse, I become dependent on whether we will be flying or wandering around in circles. I have always been aware of and respected the person that determines the impulse for the production's style, rhythm and that something that cannot be put into words. In the next stage of putting the production together we become dependent on each other. That is the most beautiful moment when one thought expressed forms the next one. This is the dialogue that makes it worthwhile joining the profession in the first place. It can work out and it may not, but the greatest pleasure is to sense a thought that has come from nowhere and fallen into your palms. If the dialogue, the harmony of ideas among the creative team disappears, we are left only with the language of signs and symbols that inform like the signs at the roadside. We lose the imagery when the space and every object can attain a new use and meaning in harmony with the actor's life in it. __________ "The Gambler" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (director Pēteris Krilovs, 2002). Valmiera Drama Theatre. Mārtiņš Kalseris, stage designer: The basis for the set design is the director's vision of creating a game of roulette as a ring dance by all the participants. The perimeter of the zero marks the trajectory of the movement and the power of the ring dance throws the gamblers against the barrier netting like bank notes that have lost their worth. The set design comes alive at the moment when the purposely incorrect barrier around the outside of the imaginary roulette wheel turns out to be responsible for the audience's physical safety. Watching the dance from the side, my mind is fully taken by the first associations on which the world of images of the stage design was constructed: an abandoned fairground in autumn; an underground gambling den where dogs, cocks and even humans tear each other apart for money; the tatty "cake" of a carousel whose prototype is the golden bells of Christmas with candles and round-bottomed angels. And speaking of zeros - when the participants of the mad dance become short of breath (remembering that the action takes place in Central Europe), I don't know why, but a line comes to mind from some song I once heard that has nothing to do with Dostoyevsky: "Our common market will be smothered in the hole of our zero" . Round and round goes the ring, the carousel of townspeople, roulette, a Russian bagel. To throng on the outside, watching over the rim of the zero is enthralling but to lean over is not recommended - the whirlpool can drag you into a black hole. When the actors and audience meet at the edge of this ring, the only thing separating them is this barrier netting. It might seem mischievous to make the audience sit with their noses against a wire fence, but this time, after we agreed with director Krilovs that the texture of this production had to be "common", in the spirit of a dilapidated fairground, it seemed right to be "incorrect". The dance goes on, giving no time to recover; it is a contrast with reflection. Zero __________ "Don Juan X", written and directed by Dž. Dž. Džilindžers (2000). Daile Theatre. Aigars Bikše, stage designer: Man's desire to understand the world is often reduced to examining a single event or object. And it is difficult to say whether the result really is a model of a large identical structure - the key with which to find order everywhere. Or perhaps they are biological drugs produced by the researcher's organism, creating a feeling of spiritual calm that also must be found. And so there is no need to worry about the real reasons for the inspiration, which, furthermore, may themselves become subject to research and give me a justifiable reason to draw this ring. __________ "Love Me" by Leonid Andreyev (director Mikhail Gruzdov, costume designer Večella Varslavāne, 2003), Daile Theatre. Mārtiņš Vilkārsis, stage designer: The beginning. Romantic illusions, bright dreams of the future as unreal memories of a non-existent past. Perhaps even sentimental banality. White on white. Then the grey deformed expanse of a boulevard, the dust covered today, a screaming Pushkin on a hazily bright Malevich background. The end. The confines of birdcages. The space - a cage. A dark room. A black square. A flaming person in it. Pigeons throughout that turn from brilliant birds of paradise into grey idlers. The flight. Initially in the sky up to the clouds and at the end as a fall from a great height. __________ "Queen Mother" by Manlio Santanelli (director Felikss Deičs, 2000). Liepāja Theatre. Photo: Ivars Noviks. Ivars Noviks, stage designer: People are lonely, even when living next door to each other. The things, memories that surround them are illuminated like people each with its own flame or energy. As it dies down so life ends. The son overtakes the mother by living life faster. The mother like a queen remains alone. In the apartment - castle of illusions are the world's masterpieces. A person can pretend that they belong to them. If it were not for the director's fine sensitivity, the set design would remain symbolic or static. Above every object - a daylight lamp. As the lamplight flickers the cold dialogue takes on an edge. Candles are the only two warm things. From plenty to emptiness. If you're not strong enough the suction of the vacuum will pull you back in. __________ "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (director Viesturs Kairišs, 1999). New Riga Theatre. "Dark Deer" by Inga Ābele (director Viesturs Kairišs, 2001). New Riga Theatre. "Jasmine" by Inga Ābele (director Viesturs Kairišs, 2003). United Intimacy. Ieva Jurjāne, stage and costume designer: If I had to describe the task of stage design, then I would say it was to help tell the story. The story is different every time and I always feel like I'm starting from scratch. To formulate my techniques as a whole would mean automatically limiting myself. The set designer, just as any other artist, must find himself in development - the theatre captures and witnesses time, one has to be on guard. I think that stage design has to do everything to bring the person "living" in it to the fore. The human body is my spatial scale and its silhouette, tone and materiality is just as important as the surrounding space. Stage design does not exist in isolation from the acting. It lives together with the performance; it must contain functionality, development and ambiguity. A photograph of the performance is only very fragmentary evidence that at best allows us to sense the visual image. __________ "The Betrothal" by Nikolai Gogol (director Mikhail Gruzdov, stage design Andris Freibergs, 2000). Daile Theatre. Anna Heinrihsone, costume designer: It is only a few steps from betrothal to marriage yet a person, be it a man or a woman, or both, can suffer the full gamut of emotions on these occasions. From surprise to doubt. From a childish piglet like squeal of delight to tortuous, deadly fear. How humanly characteristic! To be joyous and full of longing, to be indecisive. Of course the easiest thing is to go with the flow of life and events. Some men in this production are like roosters - they are full of bravado in appearance and are aware of both their feathers and the surrounding hens. They proudly strut among the farmyard muck, only slightly "dirtying" their legs. Heads always held high (in order to avoid seeing the dirty ground). The rest of them are small country dogs who are just as at home in a scruffy jumper or in a suit. They like to bark at everyone and dirty their neighbour's bowl only to wag their tails later with the most kindly look in the world. The women dress and dress, lifting cloths like washerwomen. Everything is useful, beginning with the fineries of curtains and underwear, and ending with woolen jackets. Like a sweet cake, the bride rises above the tortured piles of grey lace, thus avoiding being eaten. __________ "Dunno on the Moon" by Nikolai Nosov (director Regnars Vaivars, stage design Andris Freibergs 2002). New Riga Theatre. Anna Heinrihsone, costume designer: Going to a fortune-teller to find an interpretation of a dream you already know the answer. Look in your hidden thoughts and fantasies. Red patent leather trousers don't just mean a sexy behind, they could also be a sign of incredibly sincere naïveté. Clichés take on a new meaning when viewed through a "personal prism". I see myself as clumsy and awkward as a penguin and as beautiful as an oriental streetwalker. A mask on the face restricts normal breathing, like in a dream when you're running on the spot and you become short of breath. A kind of violet velvet coat like I've always wanted. A doctor with a large syringe. Freud would have known the explanation but modern times have overtaken him tenfold. __________ "The Government Inspector" by Nikolai Gogol (director and stage designer Alvis Hermanis, 2002). New Riga Theatre. Kristīne Jurjāne, costume designer: We each of us keep within us a notion of things we know and it's the same with things we only think we know well. The same thing happened when I was working on "The Government Inspector". The result comes close to the ideal only if the whole creative team works in complete harmony. The director Hermanis had a clear vision of the play and the arrangement of the stage. It only remained for me to participate honestly and create images that could harmoniously work in this environment. Together we chose cornflower blue for the walls and the floor, a colour very popular with Russians. I asked several real Russians and each had their own notion of what it was and in the end, as I was painting the wall it came out as "Jurjāne blue" (the hotel scene). I hand painted the toilet with tiles of exactly the same dimensions as those produced in Soviet factories, because there was a single standard. I discovered new skills in painting various stains from dripping water, dust, grease and other signs of grime. Painting this kind of wall is far more complicated than simply covering them in one tone. Of course men's suits at the time were dominated by brown and grey tones, but women's clothes had light pastel colours, probably a little washed out. I think the colour of the production, albeit unconsciously, creates a notion. On this occasion it was important to achieve convergence of people and surroundings at some points. Let the viewers watch and compare it with the picture in their heads and it feels even better if these pictures are similar. __________ "Mysteries and Happenings" by Marģeris Zariņš (director and stage designer Vilnis Vējš, 2002). Riga Museum of History and Navigation. Vilnis Vējš: The action in "Mysteries and Happenings" (1970) by composer and writer Marģeris Zariņš is set not only in contemporary Soviet times but also in the more distant past to which the heros' post-modern romantic fantasies take them. The production based on motifs from this story was created specially for the theatre festival "Homo Alibi 2002". As there were no other conditions than the wish to use different media, I had incredible freedom in repertory theatre to choose where and how to tell the story. I think the environment of the event is an independent and very powerful medium, just as important as the acting, sound, lighting and video. I could have told about the ancient past in 1970s surroundings (there is no lack of evidence of these times in the interiors of Latvian theatres), but I thought it would be far more interesting to stage the piece in the hall of a masterpiece of 18th century architecture, the Riga Museum of History and Navigation, even though it would involve several technical difficulties. The audience was placed on either side of the playing field between the narrow columns. From this position they could watch the actors in their flared trousers and sneakers working with the modest objects of a Soviet style interior. Contrasting events on two video screens ironically commented on or even adjusted the rules of the game. I don't think set design has to be limited to the visible scenes during a performance. This is especially so if it manages to include both the visual impulses that the audience receives on going to the venue through the museum galleries and the perhaps indefinable sensations that come from finding yourself in historical surroundings of great architectural value. By varying the audience's associative and intellectual fields of perception it is possible to address those individual layers of experience that are less dealt with in theatre. __________ "The Thirsty Birds" by Kristo Sagor (director Māra Ķimele, 2002). Spilve airport. Izolde Cēsniece, stage designer: I watched the performance and wondered where is that which I can call "my set design"? There was nothing artificial. The space, which itself is unique, was the abandoned Spilve airport. The action takes place in the airport. Through the window there is an empty airfield but there are airplanes on the screens on various walls. Māra Ķimele treats the space like the cosmos - all over. If the audience could be seated under the floor and on the ceiling, the actors would work there too. The love scene takes place in the toilet where there is a surveillance camera. The actors are everywhere among the audience. What happens behind is seen on screen only through the actors' eyes because the actors are filming each other. Pēteris Ķimelis mixes this on screen with views of foreign airports. The space can sound and the sound has colour, at least the sound created by Hardijs Lediņš and Mārtiņš Tauriņš does, as does the acting of Rēzija Kalniņa and Aigars Apinis. The translation can also be part of the stage design or the production. You can't separate these things so simply, at least not this time. Laboratory Work before Prague "Before Prague" is the title of the exhibition of the work of the department of stage design at the Latvian Academy of Art. It took place during the last week of April in the apartment of circus juggler Medvedyev opposite the Daile Theatre. The apartment had gone through hell and high water and the honour of discovering it went to first year student Kristians Brekte. The texture of a real apartment blended with the students' contribution giving the joint venture its own specific charm. "Before Prague" differed from the usual exhibitions of students' work in that the achievements of the department's laboratory over the last four years could be seen together. This selection of studies, sketches, models and texts will form the exhibit of the Latvian school of stage design at the 2003 Prague quadrennial of stage design and theatre architecture. Ilmārs Blumbergs will represent professional stage design with Mozart's "Magic Flute" Laboratory members are department head Andris Freibergs, directors Māra Ķimele and Alvis Hermanis, costume designer Kristīne Pasternaka, interdisciplinary artist Aigars Bikše, stage designer Mārtiņš Kalseris, the curator of Latvia's contribution, as well as 22 students from the 1st to the 6th years and several graduates of previous years. The most frequently used key words in the exhibition were: self-portrait, flight, space where suicide could take place, carnival, Ibsen's "Nora", Beckett's "Waiting for Godot", Vampilov's "On a Summer Morning"... That the directors have suggested working on themes they are themselves involved in is interesting. Viewers had the opportunity to see what was happening in Alvis Hermanis's kitchen before Gogol's comedy "The Government Inspector" drew critical acclaim on the stage of the New Riga Theatre. As student Māris Grodums wrote: "In September 2001 our whole course began working on the set design for "The Government Inspector". We tried not to be influenced by each other and come up with independent sketches. We looked for paradoxical connections with common materials, everyday articles in unusual combinations. The final idea came from a sketch for the final scene - everyone seated at a large and long table that was not really a table but a long bed. We thought about how we could make a table, walls and so on from a prop that serves as a bed. At Alvis Hermanis's suggestion, we later began working on the one variation, developing the (dining) table idea, that is, to create a cafeteria as we each saw it." The second most intriguing thing was connected with the alternative location for Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear" that the organisers of the quadrennial, the Prague Theatre Institute, had chosen for the theme of the competition. This was determined by last year's specialisation from beginner's exercises on the associative level to models. Our students were awarded a UNESCO prize at the previous quadrennial. On this occasion there are two leaders on Latvia's shortlist, Ieva Kauliņa and Kristians Brekte. We know Kauliņa from her successful debut with Blaumanis's tragedy "The Prodigal Son" at the Valmiera Theatre. As the director of the production Māra Ķimele admits, "learning takes the form of exchanging ideas among ourselves". On "King Lear", Ieva Kauliņa says: "In order to create the impression of a global catastrophe the play should be performed on the supports under the seating of a huge city stadium during a football match or bull fighting. Throughout the performance we can hear a continuous uncontrollable noise; we can feel a powerful vibration, food and drink leftovers fall onto the heads of the actors and the audience. This is all necessary in order to sense Shakespeare's tragedy as a real, inescapable and inevitable event that takes place at this very time - at the same time as many other truly tragic life stories. The performance should be played like a TV film, i.e. with several overlapping episodes. The spaces and situations are created and shown on various levels - at heights and depths, thus forming the impression of a collage. Taking into account that the audience too is sitting under the stands, the actors can also perform among the crowd of spectators, under or above it. I would like to give the opportunity of going outside the cage too, into the arena where the "sport" is taking place - in the mad scene, Lear runs naked into the stadium, or into the stands where the fans are. Kristians Brekte on the other hand, "full of energy, enjoys life with organisational and leadership skills, ready to learn" (from his CV), brings Shakespeare into the creative surroundings of a supermarket: "Lear is impotent, he moves around in a shopping trolley pushed by a fool. Lear wants to divide the supermarket among his daughters so they could wash their hair with the best shampoos, dresses with mega powders to get the most beautiful snow whiteness. (..) Cordelia does not exchange her father's love for washing powder. She chooses the wrong products without brand backing or she tears of the labels from well-known products. She writes ordinary on a shampoo. She wants to be ordinary. She wants to love not style, but the essence. (..) Edmund has the most perfect feeling for the situation. His motto: the more, the better; the higher, the stronger; hands up, all together; from right to left, all together. (..) The more you buy, the more you win. Buy two, get one free. Consumption creates a deathly void, chaos and filth. The stage becomes overgrown with packaging. The atmosphere is polluted by advertising information. Life materialises. You can only get what you need in a supermarket amusing yourself there and losing your ties with the conflicts of the real world, with suffering, abandonment, losses, your age. Old men still feel capable of influencing the world order and their children's choices. They have money in global pension funds. They rule the world demanding their interest entitlements and those working must satisfy their wishes and desires. All the old men are accompanied by the USA. It wants to save them. The fool is coincidental playing jokes. Women who choose the right brands achieve ever greater success. They are the best because they are so sexy spending twenty six hours in bioyouth extension fluid. The old men buy Penthouse and feel inside the last vestiges of life boiling over. They pore over manikins and feel power even though they are only lifeless plastic products. Having been taken over by these illusions, the old men do more stupid things than the leaders of the great powers. The more Nike, the shittier the rest; the more Nike, the greater the sex; the more Nike, the more you can do. Screw the most beautiful. Sate yourself, free yourself, kill. Even the most apocalyptic despair can be branded and put on the market to make profits". End of the prelude. | |
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