Friday, September 19
New Riga Theatre, the Big Stage
Lacplesa str. 25
6:30 PM
In Latvian (English translation)
Duration: 1 h 40
Tickets: 2, 4, 5 Ls
Tickets sold at the box-office of the New Riga Theatre

The Story about Kaspar Hauser
An attempt to remember things simple

Dramatisation: Carol Dürr, Alvis Hermanis
Director, Stage designer: Alvis Hermanis
Costumes: Vecella Varslavane
Leading role: Maris Linina
Actors: Regina Razuma, Baiba Broka, Sandra Zvigule or Guna Zarina, Vilis Daudzins, Girts Krumins, Kaspars Znotins, Aleksandrs Radzevics and students of E. Darzins Music School: Margartia Balanas, Lienite Kostanda, Marta Sausina, Peteris Ligers, Didzis Linde, Dmitrijs Granicins

Photo © Gints Malderis

Performance
The performance is a story about Kaspar Hauser, who spent all his childhood and adolescence locked up in basement, in darkness and silence. An adult person, untouched by civilisation who called himself Kaspar Hauser appeared on May 26, 1828 in Nuremberg. After regaining his freedom he started acquainting himself with the world and society, attracting to himself immense interest and attention of the public.
The performance of NRT is based on an original play. Latvian director Alvis Hermanis and German writer Carol Dürr have created the text of the play on the basis of source materials - police protocols, eyewitness accounts, testimonies of contemporaries, the notes made by Kaspar himself, as well as authors' improvisation upon this theme.
"I think that it occurs at least once to everyone that the reality to which he has born and in which he lives and functions might have blocked the way to the real, more essential, significant life. That the life we are leading in this reality is a kind of false life, and the real life deep inside us remains unrealised. Moreover, in these most recent years we have been through, we feel that everything is nothing but a system of functions. The simple has been made so complicated, that no one now remembers where it all started. Our performance is about this. You have to stop, to turn back the film, to calm down and try to remember simple things. Start anew."

Alvis Hermanis

Director
Alvis Hermanis (1965) was trained as an actor at the Department of Theatre, Latvian State Conservatoire, underwent in-service training at the International New Theatre Atelier in Paris (1990). Entered Latvian theatrical scene with unorthodox form, striking histrionics and post-modern worldview, choosing widely known and notorious works for production. His performances are characterised by perfection of form, sense of style and age. Hermanis' theatre is search for new experience and new limits of reality. Quite frequently Hermanis is the playwright, stage-designer and actor of the plays he is staging. Since 1997 he is the artistic director of the New Riga Theatre. Each year Hermanis' productions have been nominated for the award of Latvian Union of Theatre, quite often -recognised as the bet Latvian performances. Hermanis has been numerously named the best director of the year. "The Story about Kaspar Hauser" has been nominated for the title "The Best Production of the Season 2002/03".

Links
The New Riga Theatre webpage www.jrt.lv

Reviews

Photo © Gints Malderis	"A performance of vital importance, worth seeing by everyone. A work of art at Latvian theatre. Simultaneously an offer of a very simple alternative to all terrorists as well as Latvian artists tormented by matrix complex - the feeling that society is making no progress, and in order to be heard you have to blow the world into pieces. The answer given by Hermanis' performance is not destructive, it is creative. Superb actor in the role of Kaspar Hauser - Maris Linins, as well as the society of his "teachers" - Lilliputian people."
	Margarita Zieda "Apple Basket of Latvian Theatre", Diena, 19.11.2002
	"A professionally perfect work of art. Without illusions about the wroth and value of human live - "from dust thou has been taken, to dust thou shall return". The apocalyptic message of the performance is revealed in a very attractive form of a game. The gravity of the conclusions is uplifted by directors' (A.Hermanis also the stage designer of the performance) imagination, brining the original stage version to the level of a true artistic pleasure."
	Lilija Dzene, "Apple Basket of Latvian Theatre", Diena, 19.11.2002
"Director Alvis Hermanis has composed a theatrical event, that, paradoxically, can be applied two quite opposite characteristics - Kaspar Hauser is a very simple and a very sophisticated performance."		Photo © Gints Malderis
Normunds Naumanis, "Doll's House and Everyone's Own Story", Diena, 13.11. 2002
"Alvis Hermanis' slowest performance. Adagio, lento marks no only the temp and rhythm of the performance. The internal clock of the viewer is also slowly transformed. For a time you even feel the jetlag, that comes about when a 21st century human being jumps over to the 19th century. You cannot talk quickly and cheerfully about the essential with an acceleration of 9.8 words per second. Hauser, embodied by Maris Lininš, is a true lie detector. Thanks to him these 33 stories do not engage in cheap flirting with pathology. The music-box figurines that have come alive tell a fairy tale of twilight hours to adults, asking existential questions in a playful mood. This performance is the most open to the audience of all Hermanis' productions. It is pleasingly curious that this performance that was announced as a manifesto of artistic otherness and solitude, has been able to address so deeply and intimately so many different people. The director as it were has let us in into his mitten to get some warmth. Perhaps unwittingly."
Undine Adamaite "Apple Basket of Latvian Theatre", Diena, 19.11.2002

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