“Dissolved Memory”: Review of the Play “Decree No. 2” at Dailes Theatre
A review of Valter Siliņš’s production “Decree No. 2” at Dailes Theatre, where power is depicted as an inextricable tangle of public speeches, backroom deals, personal ambitions, and rhetoric of state interests.
Power as a Tangle
“Decree No. 2” at Dailes Theatre is far from the first political statement in Latvian theatre, yet during the viewing the first association involuntarily becomes the American series “House of Cards”. Cruel intrigues, manipulations, and the struggle for power in Washington, of course, belong to a different scale and a different political culture. However, in director Valter Siliņš’s staging, power is shown as a space where public speeches, backroom deals, personal ambitions, and the rhetoric of state interests intertwine into an insoluble knot.
The play provokes reflection on how memory is dissolved in political processes and how the personal and the national become one.
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