Sinners' Supper. The last meal of the JRT show review / day
Director Aika Karapetian and playwright Justin Klava's previous collaboration at the New Riga Theater Felix, Anatoly and Ilona (2023) There is a comedy that deliberately challenges and is trying to be a political correcting, especially considering that the action takes place in Latvia. The latest tandem project JRT – Last meal – No less political correcting, but its action is in France. So, on the one hand, we can come to the fact that it is not with us, they are not us, « on the other, the story is actually about any elite of power that has heated from the inside.
« This show is an exaggerated, satirical comedy with absurd elements, » the director points out in the program. The playwright, on the other hand, warns that « real characters and the facts of life intertwine with a fantasy ». The fact that the images seen on the stage are not quite documentary can be confirmed by reading the true biography of the main characters in the program. This creates an interesting mix – the images are seemingly accurate or transformed, but recognizable names and surnames of real persons, while their actions in certain circumstances, is a complete fiction because we were not there. And Justine Klava with Aik Karapetian not so.
Illegal bird
The real French President Francois Mitterran has died on January 8, 1996 at the age of 79, and the last meal with family members and close -up people has indeed happened, as is the fact that the menu included garden storms – 15 to 17 centimeters long and 18 to 30 grams. Only with us hardly anyone is trying to eat. Justine Klava's play Sturste is real, killed and complex, smuggled, because it is forbidden to buy and sell them, thus becoming a symbol of power elite law – knowing well, knowing that it should not be done, Mazeran wants these birds in the last meal. Eating breeds becomes a symbol of hypocrisy, because the tradition requires the head to be covered with a fabric, « that God does not see », citing the notion that the stirs have a soul, they are almost holy birds and that is why they should not be eaten.
In the scene in which this meal section takes place, only Jewish banker Rothschild is not subject to tradition (the former first secretary of the French Socialist Party, Banker Henri Emmanuelli). During the eating, electricity begins to twitch in the room, and for a short time, the idea that the authors of the show have really decided to send the sinners a punishment of the highest forces. But no, the light is recovering and the feast continues.
Eating protected birds, however, is not the only and heaviest offense in which the company can be blamed. One of the most important and grotesque figures is Mitterrand's eldest son, Jean -Christopher, who is involved in a weapon trade scandal and, according to the play, was discarded from the prison with the funds of his mother -led charity. Clean hands from those present are only for cook Sebastian – a fictional image that has served a meal a day in advance and has not planned longer. His tactics are to pretend to be deaf and blind (what else is left if you are in a place you have no idea, and be dependent on the favor of the hosts to get home at all), however, there are times when Sebastian has seen that it has seen it in the past.
In the eye of the storm
The last meal begins quite fun and all the first act is in that spirit, while the playwright gradually marks the isolation of the insulation of the half -glorious house from the outside world due to the snowstorm, which could become a thrilling background, but does not come. Gradually, in the kitchen where the planned menu is being disputed, we get to know all dinner guests, sleeping somewhere in Francois Mitteran. The elegant ascetic environmental layout of Mārtiņš Vilkaris with an elevator on the side of the room (two levels below the ground) allows you to focus on the plays. The actors of Kristine Pasternak have been converted into eccentric characters with the care of Ilze Trumpe. When I saw the son of Mitterrand, he had to make sure that Jacob Niemann, a man like Jacob, was really Tom Harjo. The prototype photographic show program confirms that some of the images on the stage have some portrait similarity to the relative originals, others not too much.
The first act reflects the preparation of the central event, the mutual scabies, and also the characteristics of character. Ritvara Login's chef is aware of his place, but is able to object if what's going on against his conviction. However, without being a pure working representative, he is still on a clear lower hierarchy, although he is members of the Socialist Party around him. The gap between the theoretical party course and the real bathing in the warm waters of privileges is one of the basic performances of the show. In other words, hypocrisy. Performances that expose cheaters and hypocrites are inexorable at some point to get didactic, but in this particular case it does not feel it right away, because you want to enjoy the findings of the actors in the character. Tom Harjo is undoubtedly younger than the prototype of his image during a given dinner, but as a wealthy dad, Degenerate Jean Christoph is one of the most prominent in this character gallery. The characteristic has allowed the actor to finally loosen almost to hooliganism in a good sense, while it is uneasy to realize that such a person has actually been in politics and wanted to reach his career peaks.
Too far from previously played images, it is not allowed to go to Baiba Brock's wife and Guna Zariņa, an exalted doctor, Odilles in Marie Jacob. However, it is interesting to look at the actresses, especially when cracking in the appearance of Mrs Miteran in the outer shell of Mazeran and the tusks of predators appear, and when a doctor based on science calls for a passionate call not to be eaten for esoteric reasons. Pragmatic and charming unprincipled bankers are elegantly drawing Kaspars Znotiņš, while Elita Klavina Monika Langa is seemingly frivolous, but a targeted cultural worker is a purposeful and even humiliation. As a character, perhaps not quite fully played, the daughter Mazarina Agate in Christ's portrayal is interesting. Upon arriving in a house, whose location is a secret, for example, for a cook, she speaks texts for a moment that shows conscience and ideal presence, but is increasingly feeling that they are just phrases. At the beginning of the meal, he expressed outrage over the uneaten oysters, which should be returned to the needy, Mazarin, without any objections, is involved in conviction of smuggled birds and is not at allegedly defending by doctors when it comes to Miteran's cruelty. However, no walking consciousness of the heart comes from her, although her father seems to have the only daughter of the wedding that has retained honesty.
While he dies
The second act of the show, which occurs in carpets in a white -covered dinner table, changes in the mood as the table and the show in the center of the table appears, Vilis Daugiņa's brilliantly played Francois Francois. The composition of the space does not try to give direct references to the sacrament, to some extent, the object of the parody, because the saints are not sought around the table and there is not the Son of God in the center, no matter how he likes to feel, but still does not leave the show that the creators of the show have kept this allusion in mind. The actor cope with the difficult task of preserving the cumbersome speech manner and still telling the most important text in the play. In contact with the inevitably dying family's head, the true intentions of the others present and the desire to get some benefit to themselves at the last minute.
Vilis Daugiņš shows the tragic of his hero – being an outstanding politician in the world, and he also sees himself in the circle of people in the immediate vicinity of selfishness, hypocrisy and sometimes not hiding stupidity. And that's his own fault. Mazeran is not an angel, he is not interested that the last meal is in essence is a crime, because life is over and he will not feel the consequences if the offense is revealed. The success of the long political activity cannot be denied, but mistakes cannot be denied either.
The story that has begun cozy and fun not only becomes sad, but in some way even good, but it must be. People are well settled and are not ready to give up their positions, but the change will inevitably be. The old world is changing. And here's the topicality of the show outside the 90s frames and address the viewer directly. Yes, it is nothing that we do not know, and it is just what we have come to terms with. Nothing will change after this show, which premiered at least two former Latvian presidents.
The finale of the show is getting off to the absurdity, which has proven to be the easiest way to make this story together. Reliable relatives and peers leave the dying old man and his illegal daughter cook in the community. Where do they go, and when will they come back? Nick Cyprus's light score the final accent is the beam on the daughter of Mitterrand. But we know that she is not Jeanne d'Arc and no one in the upright.
Last meal
JRT New Hall 26, 27, 29, 30II, 11-13. IV 19
Tickets sold
