Theatre and Post-Truth: KGB Experiences Reflected in the Production “History Research Commission” Directed by Alvis Hermanis

Abstract

“History Research Commission” staged by Alvis Hermanis in New Riga Theatre (2019) is an example of post-truth coming onto the theatre stage in terms of a rather sensitive subject – historical traumas and unsolved issues that still influence today’s society in Latvia. Hermanis’s production accepts the post-truth as an inevitable and obvious present framework of modern thinking; meanwhile, the subject itself (“cheka bags”) implies the impossibility to find out any “truth” due to its distorted nature from the very beginning. “History Research Commission” paradoxically leads to conclude that the post-truth approach in theatre might be the most honest in terms of today’s world, where the truth has lost its previous status of value. The article covers the short history of “post-truth” analysed by Ralph Keyes, Lee McIntyre, and Yael Brahms. It aims to apply the notion to performing arts through the example of KGB’s experiences in Hermanis’s production (co-created with the actors of the New Riga Theatre) that seems to accept the post-truth and the tragedy of Western rationalism facing the impossibility to find out the provable truth regarding certain subjects. The message of absurdity to chase the truth in “cheka bags” confirms post-truth as the status quo of our time.