The Tenderness of Clay on the JRT Stage

Four tonnes of Latvian clay have been brought onto the stage, though the story is about the lives of two brothers and their passion for a woman from a pleasure house somewhere on a distant South American ranch. Three professional actors perform - Ivars Krasts (Eduardo), Gatis Gāga (Cristián), Inga Alsiņa (Juliana) - and Sergejs Didenko - a person with developmental disabilities, who is simultaneously Narrator and Cow. The work, made based on motifs from the story "La Intrusa" ("The Intruder") by Argentine philosopher and writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), had its premiere back in the spring of 2006. This Wednesday, 28 October, having previously bought online and unsuccessfully printed tickets from the 1188 ticket reservation system (the barcode scanner couldn't read them), I too watched the production "Tenderness" at the New Riga Theatre.

The audience seats in the JRT Small Hall were 100% filled, though approximately 20 minutes after the start of the performance a few seats became free, as four audience members left the auditorium one after another in quick succession. Either they couldn't endure the heavy clay smell that filled the air, or they were offended by the characters' primitive and direct language. I must say I too watched about half the performance without any particular interest - the plot is a banal and much-rehashed relationship triangle, the movements rather brutal than tender as one might have expected judging by the production's title, the language plebeian, plus one recognisable quote from Solomon's Song of Songs, continuous kneading of clay. I believe that for some this production seemed irritating, for others engaging and innovative.

If one abstracts from the plot's main line, one can philosophise at length and earnestly about the symbolism of clay. Clay - a pliable and at the same time heavy material. Its kneading and transformation can be connected with the transformation and change of a person's personality as a result of certain powerful internal and external processes. Passion or love can turn a brutal animal slaughterer into a singer of quiet gentle songs, or can turn brotherly love into such great hatred that one can think one's way to murder.

In the production love is not separated from carnal desire, from the natural physical response to erotic stimuli - at times it even seems that feelings take second place. In reality the characters call it love, but these are "giver-taker" relations, in which I see neither respect for the beloved, nor self-respect, nor the ability to sacrifice. Where this "giver-taker" principle exists, something is also being divided. The brothers test Juliana's attachment by calling her to them as in childhood one calls a little dog. Who is the most beloved? The woman here is depicted as a characterless creature who "doesn't bite the hand that feeds her" and satisfies the man's sexual desires on demand. Though reading critics' writings about the character of Juliana, she is identified with maximum femininity - "everything that a woman can possibly be and has ever been to a man".

Continuing to watch the play, I understood that trying to extract some deep philosophical meaning from this message is pointless. This production can be perceived only through the senses - inhaling through the nostrils the heavy smell of clay, following the changing (sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh) hand movements that knead from clay a blanket, vessels, letters, a rope, and goodness knows what else, perceiving the actors' poses, caresses, the rhythm of steps. Then one seems to have returned several centuries back, somewhere far from civilisation, in the grey ranch everyday life that the Nielsen brothers themselves don't even perceive as routine, but as the inevitable course of their lives. There is no longing for the distant, for the unattainable, for change. Juliana's arrival in their home is already a grandiose change - one which the brothers cannot cope with.

I won't say - I neither recommend nor do not recommend seeing it, depending on how much of an intellectual connoisseur you are. There is no "action," no noble feelings, no mystery or complex plot entanglement. Brutal tenderness.