Jazz on the theater stage in the best sense

When we meet in his office, I tell him that the furniture looks like props from performances, and the director confirms that it is and that’s exactly how it should be in the theater. If necessary, the furniture will return to the stage.

– How do you feel about what has happened to the theater and yourself in the meantime?

– This period was very intense, because we had to make a big show and cover the scope of work.

The Great Hall show is always a new challenge because you’ve wanted to do something you’ve never done before. And then there are things you have to learn because you have been a part of the process instead of leading the process.

– The current season in Liepāja is not your merit and most likely part of the next one was already in the works. To what extent should we accept what is already planned in advance?

– There have been installations that will be as they were conceived, but quite a large part is the one for which decisions had to be made during the work process.

The basis is attention to content, attention to whether artists are doing what is really important to them.

That is the work of the theater – to count on others, to allow ideas to flourish, important works to be created.

If the artist doesn’t need it, then nobody does. If the artist needs it, then he can prove to the audience why it is needed.

Capturing it is an interesting process that needs to be learned. And I still have two shows a season to do.

– Until now, the best directors have rushed to stage in Liepāja. Is the trend continuing?

– Yes. I think there are many reasons – both the cast and the city itself, so directors are interested in offering works, and this interest is mutual with me.

Making the hard choices is the hard part because of the limited time.

The difficulty is not to find someone who will stage, Liepāja does not have to worry about that. People really want to work with this cast.

It is no secret to anyone at what level the Liepāja theater has been working for the last 15 years. This is a very high level.

– What are the priorities, accents in creating the repertoire?

– I have put my accents, but you have to know at which point everything doesn’t have to be according to your face and likeness. Must have other colors too.

A story or an idea is a very essential part of a story. To hear a new story that hits the heart and makes you experience great emotions, and the only condition is whether I feel and what kind of emotions they will be.

I always wondered if there was intrigue.

Not even how to do, but what to do. And then there are all the other issues of getting the cast to work creatively. To know when they serve and when they are served helps to make something special.

– When you took office, you emphasized the principle of co-creation, the fact that every actor is an artist, not just a performer. The troupe is ready for it, because they’ve done it before, right?

– Yes. Elmārs Senkova’s trilogy and Regnārs Vaivar’s “Latvian rockets” are good examples of this. It is important what types of action are required by the specific material or idea.

Creativity is very high here.

Each of us is a different person with our own point of view, which is why our meetings are so interesting. It’s been one of the most satisfying ways for me to have an idea meet another idea.

This is jazz in the best sense. Then it’s all fixed, and jazz can hardly happen on stage, but the emergence can happen in a freer creative way.

– Liepāja theater has become a youth theater in terms of the age of the troupe. How will you deal with the lack of actors of the older generation?

– Yes, it had to be resolved in the play “Father’s Silence”, and Įrts Krūmiņš, fortunately, agreed. Time passes, I have already reached the middle generation, and the Klaipeda course is my peers.

Yes, there are stories where the older generation is needed. Let’s try to deal with this by attracting or creating a distant relationship with a group of actors of a certain age.

I think that such a question is asked in many theaters, and it tells about a certain time in the history of Latvia, when doing theater became very difficult. This created a disproportion.

Some wild ones remained, but again – time takes its toll. It is exactly the same with the directing profession.

– You will be present from the very beginning in the construction of the extension of the Liepāja theater – the new Small Hall. What should it be?

– The so-called black box is wonderful because the director has more opportunities to build mise-en-scenes.

There is a lot in the great hall cool to look within the frame of the stage, but the principle of the black box allows even more free artistic activity and allows everyone to see everything equally well.

In the current experimental hall, people lack opportunities to see performances. Productions directly for the average size of the audience – these are our needs.

– While there is no new construction, the theater has experience with performances in the streets of Liepāja, you have created a production in the stadium. Is it thought that the theater could go beyond the usual playing fields?

– It is always related to the idea. I really hope so. At the same time, it is a tradition to come to the theater.

I think it is very important for everyone to come together and not leave the children at home.

Not a children’s show, but the whole family goes together. It’s a nostalgic feeling from my childhood, I used to go to the theater because I was taken to adult shows.

Part of the repertoire should be for as wide an audience as possible. And then there is something purely for children and purely for adults.

Art should be modern, but there are not many theater buildings like this one, very few in Latvia. It is important that we appreciate it.

– This brings us to the priority you mentioned earlier about building a close relationship with the audience. The theater always wants to see not only those who have been coming for years, but also those who have never come.

– There is a balance right there. Those who come years are to be greatly appreciated. And that crazy the circle needs to be widened. At least a subscription is a great trust in the theater, which proves the desire to see all the works as a whole.

– Do you look at the public more broadly, on the scale of Kurzeme? Because there is no other professional theater on this side of Riga.

– It was in my goals. This is something that Liepāja theater has already done, you just need to continue it and find works that can be taken to other places. Small grass works are definitely mobile.

We need to cover the region, more people.

Support must be found to be able to do this. There is so much talk about accessibility, but people in the regions are the number one issue. It is relatively easy to get to the theater from a certain radius around Liepāja, but further on it becomes more difficult.

Then we have to find a way to maintain our culture. If we don’t do it, someone else does. Do we want it?

– What do you see as the role of theater in the European capital of culture?

– The most important thing is the meeting and for the local residents it should be significant, sometimes surprising, raising questions. Because artists don’t need nice gifts.

By locals I also mean artists who live and work here. I think that meeting at different points and in different ways will be important for people of local culture.

I’m thinking more about the theater artists – let it be an adventure for them. It will be an achievement if it is like this – “wow, what is being asked of me!”, “oh, I will be able to do something like this!”, “I have wanted to do this for a long time!”.

– This is not a question about art, but everything affects the artistic result. It might not matter who owns the theater, but in the case of Liepāja, it unfortunately means less pay. What do you think about greater involvement of the state or taking over the theater from the municipality?

– If there is no state theater in the Kurzeme region, this naturally raises questions. Can’t say – what are the questions? Because between what we should and what we shouldn’t, the Jelgava theater once disappeared. Now we are an independent country!

In Liepāja, we do work at the same high level, and a regional theater supported by the state would be understandable. But it’s not that.

The question is to see in a balanced way what role the theater plays and how it does it. Not – oops, you were unlucky…

It is strange if the oldest Latvian theater is like that – in its own class. Because the difference in salaries in all positions is, of course, quite large.

– Have you decided to move to Liepāja?

– Yes, it will have to be done. Because it looks like there won’t be an express train anytime soon (laughs).

Business card

Walter Silis

• Born in 1985.
• Graduated from the Riga English Gymnasium.
• He obtained a master’s degree in art from the Latvian Academy of Culture (2010), and studied theater direction at the Aleksander Zelverovič Theater Academy in Warsaw (2007) in the “Erasmus” program.
• State director of the National Theater (2012-2023), staged “Dirty Deal Teatro”, Gertrude Street Theater, created festival performances.
• He has received several “Gamers’ Night” awards and the Eduards Smilģas award for outstanding directorial work (2022).
• In Liepāja, he staged the plays “Censor”, “Liepāja – the capital of Latvia”, “Biography. The Game” and “Father’s Silence”.