The Liepāja Puppet Theatre’s Latest Production “Santa Clauses Start a Rebellion”

“The Saeima has decided to cancel Christmas this year…”, “surveys show that children no longer believe in Santa Claus..” – a radio broadcast in Santa Claus’s home sounds just like our everyday lives, overflowing with fake news produced by the purveyors of lies, while he diligently prepares presents for children for the holiday. How could one not take such false news personally? The three Santa Clauses in the Liepāja Puppet Theatre’s latest production, “The Rebellion of the Santa Clauses”, take the absurd news very seriously – they become offended, abandon their work and head to a resort.

The Liepāja Puppet Theatre team, by contrast, has been working tirelessly for the fifth week already so that, under the direction of director Aleksandrs Jonovs and artist Kristīne Martinova, they can celebrate the premiere of the new production today, 11 December. This premiere is different – without an audience present. However, during the restrictions caused by the pandemic, anyone interested will be able to watch the production digitally.

“The production is about faith and the ability not to lose faith in a miracle, regardless of whether you are small or already a pragmatic adult. If you do not believe, life will not happen. The power of human thought and hope is so great that anything is possible, including miracles,” says Aleksandrs Jonovs, the author of the production’s concept and its director, describing its essence. “The naïve sentiment that Robert, the production’s protagonist, still possesses at this transitional age gives me confidence that faith is very important and has great power to guide our lives. For the pragmatism of adulthood creeps in unnoticed and constantly drains the energy from our lives. For an adult, achieving this elevation from a pragmatic state to a sparkle in the eyes is very difficult. The production is an attempt to preserve the sparkle in children’s eyes for as long as possible and to create a chain reaction from children to parents, making it contagious for them as well,” Jonovs adds.

A Christmas miracle also takes place on stage, where Kristīne Martinova has created vivid, colourful scenery resembling an Advent calendar or a surprise box – opening each small window reveals a new world and is an unexpected surprise. The impressive, detail-filled scenery resembles a so-called wimmelbuch (from German), or a wordless picture book, in which countless scenes, parallel events and the characters’ actions are depicted in detail within a single thematic image.

“My main goal was for it to be vivid, colourful and fun, and to contain an element of surprise. I have tried to leave room for children’s imagination,” the artist explains the idea behind the scenery. Kristīne Martinova is an illustrator who enjoys playing with details, forms and areas of colour when drawing. Her main instrument is imagination, opening up new horizons in thinking and moving away from reality. The artist’s style can be encountered in books by popular authors – Arno Jundze’s “Šušnirks un pazemes bubuļi” (Zvaigzne ABC), Ilmārs Šlāpiņš’s “Es nemāku, komatus” (Neputns) and Andri Snær Magnason’s “Zilās planētas stāsts” (Jānis Roze).

The production’s composer, Rustam Bagirov, acknowledges that writing music for a children’s production is undeniably a challenge, because the music must sound light and the melodies must be “catchy”. “It was very interesting for me to create music in which every song, even the sad one, had to contain a hint of a bright Christmas mood. I listened to a lot of popular Christmas songs and studied their harmonies in order to find the essence of the holiday,” explains the creation of the production’s music the well-known Liepāja musician and composer.

The production was created with financial support from the Liepāja Municipality and is included in the “Latvian School Bag” programme.

Premiere: 11 December 2020

Online performance bookings: izrades@liepajaslelles.lv, 26 594 529

Target audience: children aged 2–10 – pupils of preschool educational institutions and students in Years 1–4.

For some time now, Santa Clauses have not been receiving letters sent by children. One of the Santas hears sensational news on the radio: “children think that there is no such thing as Santa Claus”. To prove their existence, all the Santa Clauses rebel and completely disregard Christmas.

Creative team

Director and concept author | ALEKSANDRS JONOVS

Artist | KRISTĪNE MARTINOVA

Composer | RUSTAMS BAGIROVS

Cast | ILZE JURA, MADARA ENKUZENA, INGARS GUDERMANIS

Song lyricist | VALĒRIJA JONOVA

Translator | ZOJA ZANDBERGA

Props and puppet makers | VITA RADZIŅA, KRISTĪNE DEKOVICE

Sound operator | KRISTAPS ŽILINSKIS

Lighting operator | JĀNIS BRAŠS

For further information

Ieva Hmieļevska

SIA “Liepājas Leļļu teātris”

Public Relations Manager

Telephone: 26 596 186

Email: ieva.hmielevska@liepajaslelles.lv

www.liepajasllelles.lv