Gunārs Priede
Blue
A life in 2 parts
Director - Māra Ķimele,
Director's assistant - Linda Kalniņa,
Set designer - Reinis Suhanovs,
Costume designer - Ilze Vītoliņa,
Lighting designer - Niks Cipruss,
Composer - Toms Auniņš
Cast: Artis Jančevskis, Ieva Puķe, Anna Nele Āboliņa, Tālivaldis Lasmanis, Baiba Valante, Aigars Vilims, Māra Vīgante
High in the mountains of Georgia, in a town by the Black Sea, Rasma has been living for two months with her gravely ill son. Juris was injured in a car accident that killed half of the family - his father and grandmother. Juris is haunted by the intense gaze of the blue cow he noticed by the roadside a moment before the crash. It awakens something in the young man, who until now had lived rather lightly. He asks his mother to get him volumes of folk songs, books everyone knows about but only few have read. In existential isolation, the family wrestles with difficult questions of guilt, what was left unsaid, and how to live on.
"A performance about how life forces you to turn the little mirror toward yourself and see something unexpected. Through leaving, Juris connects with his own essence and, in the end, with his own people, with everything that cannot be touched only with the hands. We also have a spiritual heritage. I want to make this performance about the fact that leaving is not the end, but the highest point. Juris goes into the light, he becomes enlightened and leaves," says director Māra Ķimele.
Gunārs Priede wrote this play in 1972 in the course of a few days. It was immediately placed on the list of undesirable plays and premiered in Estonia in 1973.
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The production was created with the support of the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation in Valmiera Theatre's 2026/2027 season.
With the support of the foundation, the following reached audiences in the 2026/2027 season: The Fear and Wretchedness of the Third Reich (director Indra Roga). In the 2025/2026 season: Evil Spirit (director Inese Mičule), Medea (director Reinis Suhanovs), You Will Be Mine! (director Jānis Znotiņš), Skroderdienas Silmačos (director Elmārs Seņkovs). In the 2024/2025 season: Romeo and Juliet (director Inese Mičule), Blue (director Māra Ķimele), Sprīdītis (director Reinis Suhanovs), Four White Shirts (director Jānis Znotiņš) and The Magic Mountain (director Toms Treinis).
The theater's friendship with the foundation began in the 2023/2024 season, the theater's centenary year, when four works of Latvian dramatic classics were staged: Valmiera Boys (director Jānis Znotiņš), The Widow's Son (director Viesturs Roziņš), as well as Joseph and His Brothers (director Inese Mičule) and The Prodigal Son (director Reinis Suhanovs), which won special acclaim from audiences and critics alike.
