As a child I remember very little talk about my grandmother’s younger years in Latvia. I knew she had been an actress in the theatre in the 1920s and had met my grandfather there but she never spoke of her time on the stage. My grandmother joined the Liepaja Theatre in 1924 and took lessons from a renowned teacher. She worked there from 1924 to 1928 and then again in the early 1930s - the certificate below confirms her employment as an actress there. I imagine that she was following family tradition by choosing a theatrical career as her parents had both been actors in that theatre and her father had been a well known director in the early part of the century. An internet search came up with a few items including this group portrait of the ‘Klio Class’ of 1924. She is seated front right, in a very melodramatic pose!
My grandmother as an actress in the 1920s, certificate from the Liepaja Theatre
My grandmother (right) in a production at the Liepaja Theatre
Cast list for a production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People showing my grandmother in a leading role
It must have been an exciting time for a young woman in those early days of the newly independent Latvian state - earning a living in the theatre, being part of a troupe of bright young actors, the camaraderie of life on the stage. The Liepaja Theatre still exists to this day and is a well-known cultural institution in Latvia. These few photographs belonging to my grandmother and little scraps of information I could find are all that remain as testament to her life at that time and give a picture so different to the identity of the grandmother that I knew.