Review: "My Father Is Russian" at Riga's Corner House is about a daughter who loses her father twice
Director Viesturs Roziņš's play "Mans tēvs – krievs" (My Father Is Russian), based on Inga Žolude's novel "Tēvs", is staged in Riga's Corner House, a former KGB building. The reviewer praises Mihails Abramovs's performance but finds the daughter's change of attitude too abrupt.
The theatre production "Mans tēvs – krievs" (My Father Is Russian) is being staged at the Corner House (Stūra māja) in Riga, a building that once housed the Soviet security service, the KGB. It is directed by Viesturs Roziņš and based on a play by writer Inga Žolude, who adapted her own autobiographical novel "Tēvs" (The Father, 2026). The show runs from 26 October to 30 November, with tickets at 30 euros on Bezrindas.lv. The review was written by a critic of the Latvian daily Diena.
The story
After Russia's war in Ukraine begins, a daughter learns that her Russian father sees the war differently from her: he watches Russian information channels and believes them. She decides to cut off contact, but later finds out that her father has an incurable mental illness. In the production it is Alzheimer's disease.
The venue as part of the show
Audiences move through corridors and staircases once used to lead people repressed by the Soviet authorities. The action takes place in a cell, an interrogation room, a former canteen and a prisoners' exercise yard. Set designer Valters Kristbergs did not heavily theatricalise the rooms, instead using everyday Soviet-era objects. The government has backed taking the building into state ownership while keeping the Museum of the Occupation exhibition there, but the process has not moved forward substantially.
Performances
The reviewer singles out Mihails Abramovs as the father, who gradually absorbs propaganda narratives and later succumbs to the illness. Agnese is played by Inga Alsiņa-Lasmane, her sister Dārta by Dana Avotiņa-Lāce, and the father's wife Ludmila by Regīna Devīte. Costumes are by Ilze Vītoliņa.
Criticisms
The adaptation leaves out the novel's childhood storyline and the mother. The reviewer also regrets a change near the end: in the novel the father is taken to a concert by singer-songwriter Boris Grebenshchikov, while in the play it is an instrumental music concert. In her view, the daughter's shift from rejecting her father's views to compassion feels too abrupt and psychologically underexplained.
