JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS

Rainis

JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS

Directed by Inese Mičule

Visual interpretation by Reinis and Krista Dzudzilo

Lighting by Oskars Pauliņš

Composer Rihards Zaļupe

Choreographer Linda Mīļā

Cast: Aksels Aizkalns or Mārtiņš Meiers, Ieva Estere Barkāne, Tālivaldis Lasmanis, Inese Pudža, Krišjānis Salmiņš, Rūdis Bīviņš, Kārlis Freimanis, Rihards Jakovels, Artis Jančevskis, Ingus Kniploks, Mārtiņš Liepa, Ģirts Rāviņš, Sandis Runge, Krišjānis Strods, Toms Treinis, Niks Judenkovs or Roberts Kāpostiņš, Ernests Meikšāns.

Joseph is the Hamlet of today. He deals with his burning questions in complete solitude, just like that. Like all of us. When all social networks are switched off, with the hum of real and fake advisers gone, you are left one on one with your conscience and your inner compass. The needle jerks. Where will it settle? Nursing one’s pain and growing a victim’s resentment is so sweet and tempting. Suppressing the whining of one’s “ego” is perhaps one of the hardest tasks in a human lifetime. In today’s world, where there are so many pits for Joseph, what does it really mean to forgive? What does it mean to turn evil into good? To feel the gifted feather in your breast, not the thorns?

Director Inese Mičule, as well as the creative team, scenographer Reinis Dzudzilo, visual artist Krista Dzudzilo and composer Rihards Zaļupe, have already proven through their previous productions their human maturity to speak in theater about complex ethical and philosophical questions in a concise tragic form.

Director Inese Mičule: “A play whose high artistic value, poetic and symbolic layer, and the universal human theme contained within it surpass anything I have worked on in my creative life before. In my view, the content of Rainis’ play contains a kind of ethical and aesthetic frame of reference that is especially relevant today as well, in an age of power and aggression, globalization, and the world wide web. It is a dispute about humanity’s path, about our own subjective path, which cannot be influenced, because a person’s spiritual growth happens only when that person wants it. Therefore, the production’s main task would be, through Rainis’ work, to undergo a kind of moral self-purification, both social and individual. To proclaim that God’s will is for people to be able to grow in their spirituality and in their ability to forgive.”.

Premiere: October 5, 2023

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The production was created with the support of the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation. In the centenary season, theatergoers will be able to see new productions based on the values of Latvian dramatic classics. The staging of four works has become possible thanks to the foundation’s financial contribution. These are Rainis’ “Joseph and His Brothers” (director Inese Mičule), “The Widow’s Son,” based on the motifs of Viļis Plūdonis’ poem (director Viesturs Roziņš), Pāvils Rozītis’ “Valmiera Boys” (director Jānis Znotiņš), and Rūdolfs Blaumanis’ “The Lost Son” (director Reinis Suhanovs).

The support in the 2023/2024 season is a gift from the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation to Valmiera Theatre on its centenary and an investment in its journey from a temporary home in the contemporary art space “Kurtuve” to the renovated and modernized theater building on Lāčplēša Street.