The opening of the new season: Estonian director Peeter Jalakas starts with Shakespeare’s The Tempest
4 August marks the opening of the new season with a reading of Shakespeare’s The Tempest in the rehearsal hall. Peeter Jalakas leads the creative process of the play. He’s a well-known director and producer in Estonia and Europe. It is his first work in Lithuania and a gift for all who love this artist’s creativity. There will be no need to go to international festivals or the VON KRAHL theatre in Tallinn to see Peeter Jalakas’s performances. By the way, the film-performance JAIK was presented at the Scena10x10 festival at the NKDT in 2020.
Cast: The playwright Taavi Eelmaa, the scenographer and costume designer Kristel Zimmer, composers Gavin Bryars and Yuri Bryars, the video director and scenographer Emer Värk.
Actors: Artūras Sužiedėlis, Henrikas Savickis, Dainius Svobonas, Ričardas Vitkaitis, Arūnas Stanionis, Ridas Žirgulis, Gintautas Bejeris, Agnieszka Ravdo, Martyna Gedvilaitė, Mantas Bendžius, Deividas Breivė, Motiejus Ivanauskas, Kamilė Lebedytė.
“The Tempest” – one of the latest dramatic works by W. Shakespeare, staged many times in various places in Lithuania. Written in the XVII century, this tragicomedy reflects the disappointment of the ideal of humanism and connects reality with the magic and fantasy elements of fairy tales. On a distant nameless island live the outcasts – a wizard and an artist, Prospero, with his daughter Miranda. Prospero controls the elements of nature, evil and good spirits. He seeks revenge on his enemies, who once made him run away from Milan and took his duke throne. Using spells, he stirs up a tempest in the sea, in which the enemies’ ship is sailing, breaks it, and flings away the crew to the same island. Once the enemies are lured, Prospero chooses forgiveness. “The Tempest” is one of the few works by W. Shakespeare with a happy ending.
Peeter Jalakas, an Estonian director and avant-gardist, creates a modern and theatrical show where live theatre and modern technologies are merged, employing the exotic surroundings of the island. The director presents an original interpretation and suggests picturing the nameless island inhabitants as the basis of the new, better and improved humanity. He also proposes imagining a future where artificial intelligence takes over the roles of mythological creatures, spirits, and nymphs.
Peeter Jalakas is an Estonian theatre director, playwright, and producer. In 1987, he established the first private theatre troupe in Estonia called “VAT Teater“, and in 1989 – a theatre called “Ruto Killakund” (both of them are based in Talin), where he was the manager and the producer, and was one of the first ones to stage plays in non-traditional spaces in Estonia. Since 1992, he has led the theatre “Von Krahl”, which he established in Talin. From 1994 to 1996, he was the manager of “Rakvere” drama theatre. In 1990, in Pärnu, he started the alternative theatre international festival “Baltoscandal”. He also writes plays and combines multimedia and Estonian folklore in an authentic way in his performances.
NKDT information
Peeter Jalakas and Taavi Eelmaa
