It’s Not Like It Seems

“It’s Not Like It Seems”

Ingomar Vihmar: This play is my declaration of love to theatre. I started writing it more than ten years ago because I simply couldn’t do otherwise. My passionate relationship with theatre had to be explained. To myself. To get it off my chest.

What is it about? Theatre. The meaning of theatre and the meaninglessness of theatre. (The meaning of life and the meaninglessness of life.) Actors. Playwrights. Directors. Ordinary people. God.

Many questions are asked in this story, but none of them are answered. It is full of paradoxes, just as theatre is, in my view. A new method rules out the previous one, which in turn rules out the one before that—and so on. Until we come full circle back to the beginning. Nothing can be believed definitively, and nothing can be known with one hundred per cent certainty. All narratives are made fun of. Even the meanings of words are called into question.

Which is more real—life or theatre? When is an actor more genuine—when they are performing, or when they simply are?

The text examines the fears of the actor (the person): the fear of failure, the fear of making mistakes, the fear of being shamed. In short—the fear of being on stage.

This play does not know what it wants, but it knows that it wants something!

What is real is not under threat. What is unreal does not exist.

Author-director: Ingomar Vihmar
Designer: Kristel Zimmer
Composer: Hendrik Kaljujärv
Lighting designer: Priidu Adlas

On stage: Juhan Ulfsak, Mari Abel, Ester Kuntu, Kristina Preimann, Karl Birnbaum, Markus Andreas Auling, Herman Pihlak and Edgar Vunš

Premiere on 2 December 2026.
Approximate duration: 2 hours without an intermission