Nemesis

BANUTA RUBESS is a writer and director with a string of innovative productions to her credit for audiences in Europe and Canada. One of the first batch of women to win the Rhodes Scholarship, she has a doctorate in history from the University of Oxford. She is currently at work on a television series based on the story of a doomed Latvian press magnate.

I know now, I understand at last, Constantine, that for us, whether we write or act, it is not the honour and glory of which I have dreamt that is important, it is the strength to endure.
—THE SEAGULL, ACT 4

ONE DAY, my friend Juris asked me to go see a new version of The Seagull. This was in Riga, in 2017. I had returned to visit Latvia after a long absence.

“Good old Seagull,” I said to Juris. “I directed a clown version once. Where is this production?”

Juris hesitated. “At the National Theatre.”

“No, thank you,” I replied. “Not the National.”

It was because of the shawl. The theft still gave a punch to my gut. Who could be so malicious? I tried to recall the faces of the actors. Was it one of them? Had they hated me so much? My mother had given me that shawl, and since she had died, it had been my special treasure: handmade, wool, a tender shimmer of violet and dark blue, shot with pink and yellow stripes, colors she’d chosen specially for her dreamy, difficult daughter. Now my precious shawl was gone, and it was all because I had directed a play at the National Theatre,