The Fountainhead

Filming and photographing during this performance is strictly prohibited. At the entrance to the hall, we will ask you to cover your smart device’s camera with a special sticker, supporting the theater campaign “Theater Without Phones,” which stands for respecting actors’ privacy and for free and open theater.

Aina Renda

The Fountainhead

A melodrama about impossible love

Translated from English by Silvija Brice

At the Large Hall of the Dailes Theatre from April 16

• 18.09.26. Performance with English surtitles. For better visibility of the surtitles, when buying tickets we recommend choosing seats starting from the 7th row to the back of the hall /
• 18.09.26. performance with English surtitles. For better visibility of the surtitles, we recommend choosing seats starting from the 7th row and back.
• 14.08.26. Performance with Latvian surtitles. For better visibility of the surtitles, when buying tickets we recommend choosing seats starting from the 7th row to the back of the hall.

True obsession and absolute passion are like skyscrapers, they cast a shadow on passersby.

Howard Roark is a young, brilliant, and uncompromising architect. A revolutionary who gives up the comfort of an architect’s office to work in a stone quarry. Yet he is noticed by Dominique Francon, the lover of his former friend and rival Peter Keating, a woman from high society whose father owns the quarry. A new obsession is born in both of them, and it will become their doom.

They represent worlds more different from one another than anything else, yet both are fatalists. Dominique cannot decide: to love Roark or destroy him, so that neither of them has to suffer? The relationship triangle tightens even more when Dominique decides to give herself to media magnate Wynand so that her then-husband Keating can carry out the biggest commission of his life. But Wynand asks for Dominique’s hand in marriage, and everything becomes impossibly complicated, because her adored Roark and her new husband Wynand become inseparable friends.

The renowned writer Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead (1943) is one of the most significant literary works of the 20th century, called a “hymn to individualism.” Although Rand was initially criticized and rejected by 12 publishers, this sharp-eyed, expansive, gripping melodrama of ideas is now enjoying renewed popularity. In European theater, staging this work is considered almost an impossible task - the novel’s relationship polygons and plot lines are as challenging as its unruly, strong-willed characters.

Cast: Kaspars Dumburs (Howard Roark), Mārtiņš Meiers (Peter Keating), Artūrs Skrastiņš (Ellsworth Toohey), Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa (Dominique Francon), Kārlis Freimanis (Valmiera Theatre) (Gail Wynand), Indra Briķe (Mrs. Keating), Jana Herbsta (Katrīna Halsey), Dainis Gaidelis (Guy Francon), Juris Bartkevičs (Henry Cameron), Madara Viļčuka (The Fountainhead), Marta Lovisa Jančevska (Alva Scarret), Matīss Ozols (Austin Heller)

Director - Viesturs Kairišs, Adaptation - Koen Tachelet, Set designer - Reinis Dzudzilo, Costume designer - Simona Veilande, Choreographer - Jiri Nael, Lighting designer - Niks Cipruss, Lighting designer assistant - Miks Guds, Music by - Juris Vaivods, Assistant director - Rafaels Bijevs, Stage manager - Iveta Boša, Co-producer - Kristīne Mūrmane