Thursday, May 21, 17:00
National Theatre, Kronvalda buvāris 2
Duration: 3h
In Latvian with English translation
Author Fyodor Dostoevsky
Director Vladislavs Nastavševs
Set design and costumes: Vladislavs Nastavševs
Performers: Arturs Krūzkops, Dita Lūriņa, Līga Zeļģe, Anta Aizupe, Kaspars Dumburs, Ģirts Liuziniks, Jānis Vimba, Imants Strads
Producer: National Theatre (www.teatris.lv)
Premiere on March 10, 2015
‘My Idiot is about our relationship with God, it is also a story about Russia’, says director Vladislavs Nastavševs. ‘Each one of us would like to call God and to have a chat. Admit it or not, our lives are ongoing conversations with God. Some choose to call it a conversation with one’s alter ego or consciousness. For Dostoevsky, it is God people are talking to. Russia today disseminates a feeling of apocalypse similar to the one we all felt in 1989 before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Times are changing, Russia is not. It is another topic important for Dostoevsky who cared about the destiny of his country.’
Vladislavs Nastavševs’ (1978) directorial début on Latvian stage in 2010 marked a new relationship between the linguistic and visual forms of the performance. This tension became the dominant force in his work and challenged the tradition of Latvian scenography. It seems that director, stage designer and musician inhabiting Nastavševs, compete with each other for leadership in his work. Fortunately, in the end, the winner turns out to be each one of them. Nastavševs takes great care of the production as an integrated art work where the space is shared equally by performers, set, objects, sound and light. By minimal yet effective means the director turns empty, unaltered stages into imaginary rooms, where all relative constraints have to fall. Nastavševs brings carefully selected, meticulous, radically laconic aesthetics back to the performance, whether it is a tea-pot suddenly spouting sand or an old-fashioned spotlight, which elevates the realistic performances of actors into visual metaphors. The impact of these metaphors is virtually universal. Nobody is beyond their effect, even if the audience is unaware of the influence or resents it.
Since 2010 Nastavshev has worked in Riga, Tallinn, St. Petersburg and Moscow and has staged plays by the great classic playwrights like Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, August Strindberg, Russian writers Daniil Kharms, Mikhail Kuzmin, Yevgeni Kharitonov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, as well as contemporary authors. In most of his productions Nastavshev is also the author of the set and costumes, sound and light design. Last season his performance “Travellers by sea and land” at the New Riga Theatre received the annual Latvian theatre award for the best large stage production.
Nastavševs has studied acting at the Academy of Theatre Arts, Saint Petersburg and directing at Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design in London. He has worked at Dirty Deal Teatro, Valmiera Theatre, National Theatre, New Riga Theatre (Latvia), Teater NO99 (Estonia), Gogol Center (Russia).
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