The photo was taken on Herman Friedlander's 19th birthday, right before he left for America. He never saw his family again.
The Latvia Project is an attempt to construct stories about what happened to the other nine people in the photograph through letters, family anecdotes, and archival research. There is no real way for us to get to know these people born two centuries ago, but through collaboration with five actors, a musician, a designer, and Russian-English director Veronica Wigg, we will try to incarnate these people who remain lost in the dark history of the 20th century.
Today, Veronica, our designer Craig Napoliello and I gathered in the large rehearsal room at the Lincoln Center Theater and laid out our primary documents on the floor. We went over some possible narratives to explore and also discussed a structure and ways to use the performance space. Tonight I'll be typing up potential text for the piece from primary sources, and during the week we'll hone our material and our approach. On Saturday we'll meet our actors and begin rehearsal.
