Photo: Jānis Deinats, Fotocentrs
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Alvis Hermanis
Alvis Hermanis has been the artistic director of the New Riga Theatre (Jaunais Rīgas teātris) since 1997.
At present he is one of the most interesting and creatively innovative stage directors in Latvia. He has received the prestigious Young Directors Project Award for the production of the play The Inspector General/Revizor at Salzburg Theatre Festival (2003) and IX Europe Prize for New Theatrical Realities (2007). In 2008 he was awarded the Stanislavsky Prize in the category Foreign Theatre, Russia, Moscow.
Alvis Hermanis graduated from the Department of Theatrical Arts of the State Conservatory in 1988. Since 1993 he has been making stage productions at the New Riga Theatre.
Alvis Hermanis’ productions are characterized by playing around with different theatrical styles and aesthetics, with cultural icons of the East and the West. He creates original combinations using images and symbols from different cultural and historical periods. Along with the plays staged in the classical psychological style, such as A.Arbuzov’s play My Poor Marat, (1997) or The Long Life (2003) he has used marionette theatre in the play The Story of Kaspar Hauser (2003) or combination of various media and vantage points in the play By Gorky (2004). Of late Alvis Hermanis has been exploring the immediate realities of our daily life: by using real people and their life stories and transforming them by the actors’ fantasy they evolve into expressive prototypes of Latvian society in the plays Latvian Stories (2004), Latvian Love (2006), Grandfather and Marta From the Blue Hill (2009). In particular, the real and specific reconizability are those misleading things which tend to place Hermanis’ productions in the genre of documentary theatre. Instead of documenting life, Hermanis creates his own version of it; he construes it from scratch by using the materials of life itself.
“As years go by, my views about art are becoming more and more old-fashioned; therefore, I believe that the theatre must be a place where the audience would laugh and cry. And the ultimate level that the actors can achieve is to make the audience do it simultaneously. If a viewer’s lips are smiling, while, at the same time, there are tears in his eyes, it means that the theatre has touched the most fragile matter in this world – the human soul itself.”
Alvis Hermanis
On frequent occasions Hermanis is an actor in his own stage productions. He has successfully participated also in productions of other stage directors. In 2004 for the part of Jean in the stage production of Miss Julie (directed by Mara Kimele) he was nominated as best actor of the year. He has played several parts in films as well. Over the years Hermanis’ attitude to the role of actors in his plays has changed. The actors of the Riga New Theatre are co-authors in his plays.
For several of his plays Hermanis has created also stage design and written the text for.
Parallel to his work at the New Riga Theatre, Hermanis has staged plays in Von Krahli Teatter Tallinn, Estonia (Šalajased pildid II, Loomav Pimedus, 1994), at the Latvian National Opera (Fire and Night, 1996), Schauspielfrankfurt (Kollektives Lesen eines Buches mit Hilfe der Imagination in Frankfurt, 2005), Schauspielhaus Zürich (The Blazing Darkness, by A. Buero-Vallejo, 2006; Fathers, 2007; Idiot. The Beginning of the Novel, by Dostoyevsky 2008) Schauspielhaus Köln (Cologne Affairs, 2008; Die Geheimnisse der Kabbala, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, 2009), Theatre of Nations, Moscow (Stories by Shukshin, 2008), Wiener Burgtheater (Eine Familie, by Tracy Letts August: Osage County, 2009), Münchner Kammerspiele-Werkraum (Späte Nachba, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, 2009).
Hermanis’ performances has participated at the main internationals festivals: such as Edinburgh Festival (U.K., 2006), Festival d'Avignon (France,2008) KunstenFestival des Arts (Brussels, Belgium, 2004, 2007), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna, Austria, 2005, 2007) and many others.
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