The Evil Spirit

The Cīruļi family receives news that they have won a huge sum of money in the lottery. The unexpected windfall turns their familiar life upside down. The mistress of the house imagines herself a grand lady: she no longer lets her brother marry the woman he loves—a simple maid—and nearly throws her mother-in-law out of the house. Who hasn’t thought that it would be nice to win something more substantial than an umbrella in the lottery? And who, hand on heart, is ready to say they could withstand the test of having a lot of money with dignity? Rūdolfs Blaumanis wrote the folk play Ļaunais gars in 1892. As director Inese Mičule stages the play today, she reflects: “If we lift our gaze above the play’s usual label, ‘folk play’, we cannot fail to notice that Blaumanis speaks about something very fundamental: who are you in this world? A speck of dust, or something more? Are you your name, your land, or your possessions? At the very beginning of the play, the author slyly tosses out the phrase that happiness cannot be separated from money any more than the sun can be separated from the day. And he creates a powerful whirlpool in which the characters try to balance happiness and wealth, feelings and reason. A person becomes confused and, to quote Blaumanis again, walks around like a cat in smoke—and this happens both in the author’s time and today.” The production was created with the support of the Boris and Ināra Teterev Foundation during Valmiera Theatre’s 2025/2026 season. With the Foundation’s support, the following productions reached audiences in the 2026/2027 season: Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (director Indra Roga); in the 2025/2026 season: Ļaunais gars (director Inese Mičule), Medea (director Reinis Suhanovs), You’ll Be Mine! (director Jānis Znotiņš), Skroderdienas Silmačos (director Elmārs Seņkovs); and in the 2024/2025 season: Romeo and Juliet (director Inese Mičule), Zilā (director Māra Ķimele), Sprīdītis (director Reinis Suhanovs), Četri balti krekli (director Jānis Znotiņš) and The Magic Mountain (director Toms Treinis). The friendship between the theatre and the Foundation began in the 2023/2024 season, the theatre’s centenary, when four classics of Latvian drama were staged: Valmieras puikas (director Jānis Znotiņš), Atraitnes dēls (director Viesturs Roziņš), as well as Jāzeps un viņa brāļi (director Inese Mičule) and Pazudušais dēls (director Reinis Suhanovs), which received particular acclaim from audiences and critics.